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Properly Contributing to Open Source While on Company Time?

Posted by Cliff on from the avoiding-the-SCOrn-of-your-superiors-isn't-a-WASTE-of-time dept.

egeorge asks: "I was wondering what kind of paperwork/policies developers have at their jobs concerning contribution to open source projects. I develop software at a company that derives almost its entire revenue from software. Some software is licensed to customers, some is run internally in a service model, but the software is our whole business. We have recently been doing more and more modification and customization of open source products, and we would love to give some of this back. As developers, though, some of us are a little hesitant to just start flinging code that technically still belongs to the company out into the world. We want to make sure we get clarification about what is or is not covered by our NDAs. So, what kind of procedures do other developers have to go through to get adequate coverage for Open Source submissions? I would like to suggest a policy to my superiors, and could use a few good suggestions."

400 comments

  1. Simply put: I don't. by Vengeance · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm a consultant, paid for my time and the IP I develop. I would not dare to risk cross-contamination by doing anything more than downloading and using open-source packages at the office.

    --
    It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
  2. Copyright by krisp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As I understand it, as far as the copyright law goes, if you create it at work on your companies' computer, the copyright belongs to them.

    1. Re:Copyright by spazoid12 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It has nothing to do with copyright law.

      What you state is true most of the time, but not all, because of company policy.

      And...I hate it.

      They always pull the old "we own the computer, therefore" line. It's the same reason given for why they feel justified in reading your emails and such. Well, they own the phones, too, but they cannot legally record your calls without notice.

      A friend and I were talking about this a while back. We were allowed to play games at work from time to time, and so sometimes I did. He teased me that I played games on company time. Technically, that can't be said...because we were salaried employees. An extreme analogy would be: make me an hourly employee, and put a timeclock on my desk. I might clock-in and clock-out at intervals of only 10 seconds here and 2 minutes there. A salary employee is essentially doing that, but without the physical timeclock on the desk...just as a mental exercise. Therefore, a salary employee never plays games on company time... and, possibly, might always be free to develop his own ideas which might still belong to him... aside from the fact that he used the company-owned PC at the time.

      I'd better check with the carpenters that built my house... it's possible that they own the house, and not me, because they owned the hammers and saws used to build it!

    2. Re:Copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd better check with the carpenters that built my house... it's possible that they own the house, and not me, because they owned the hammers and saws used to build it!

      Umm, that's exactly what you're doing.. You claim that not everything done using your employers equipment at your employers place of business belongs to them, and that you can decide when you're "off the clock" and your work belongs to you.

      You paid for your house. Your employer is paying you to be at work. If you claim rights to something you built using the employer's tools at the employer's place of business while being paid by the employer, your case is an even bigger stretch then a carpenter claiming rights to your house.

    3. Re:Copyright by jht · · Score: 1

      Your house, though, was a "work for hire". So unless you didn't pay the carpenters, it belongs entirely to you.

      Of course, if you managed to take posession of the house without paying them, they'd get a lien placed against the house, but that's almost besides the point.

      Freelance writers generally work on a "work for hire" basis, as do other professions where the end result is a product (tangible or not) turned over to you. In most cases, though, studio photographers don't do that unless you specifically arrange it - they retain the copyright even though it's really a work for hire that you commissioned. That's why places with photo gear generally won't let you reproduce things like wedding photos, school portraits, and such without a release - even though you paid for it all you bought were the prints, not the rights.

      Anyhow, just to bring this back to where we started, regardless of who owns the tools you use, the rights to what you do at work generally belong to the employer. I'm not a coder, but if I were developing code for my own purposes on my TiBook and brought it into work to give me a chance to work on my project during downtime, my employer could argue that they hold the rights. If I do the work at home that's a lot less likely to stand.

      What I really wonder about is how that would affect a teleworker. Ideally, though, your employer would recognize the value in letting you officially contribute back to the community and render the point moot.

      --
      -- Josh Turiel
      "2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
    4. Re:Copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      that's backwards logic.


      The company pays an employee for their work and ideas.


      You paid the carpenters for their labor.


      Where the carpenter got his carpenter doesn't matter. Where the employee got his knowledge of finite state machines doesn't matter.

    5. Re:Copyright by Spazmania · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes and no.

      If you are an actual employee, paid a salary or paid hourly where they withhold taxes and social security and what not, then any work done within the reasonable scope of your employment is considered work made for hire, thus the copyright vests in the employer rather than in you.

      However, in almost every other circumstance, the copyright vests in you and must be explicitly transferred. This means that if you're a consultant, you own the work. Or if you're paid by the job, you own the work. Or if the work isn't reasonably within the scope of your employment, you own the work.

      Some examples:

      You are a janitor at the local school. While at work, you go into the computer lab and write the next Microsoft Windows. Who owns the work? You do. Although done on your employer's time and facilities, it was not within the scope of your employment. (Note however that the school can fire you and sue for misuse of facilities.)

      A local ISP pays you $1000 to write a spam filter. Who owns it? You do. You were not an employee of the ISP.

      A local ISP pays you $1000 to write a spam filter. You sign a contract which says, "I agree to write a spam filter and the copyrights belong to the ISP." Who owns it? You do. You can't assign rights to a work that hasn't yet been created.

      A local ISP pays you $1000 to write a spam filter. After writing the software you sign a contract which says, "I assign the rights to this software to the ISP." Who owns it? The ISP does. You did first, and then you assigned the rights.

      Here's a tricky one:

      You work (as an employee) for a company writing accounting software. You sign an employment contract which says, "All software I write while employed by the company belongs to the company." In your spare time you write a spam filter. Who owns it? You do. A court would find that the actual fact was that accounting software was the scope of your employment. The only software that's work made for hire (whose copyrights vest in the employer) is the software written within the scope of your employment. And, as previously mentioned, you can't assign copyrights for something you havn't written yet.

      What if you wrote the next Lotus 123? Then the company would own it. A spreadsheet is reasonably accounting software which was within your actual scope of employment.

      Here's a trickier one:

      You work (as an employee) for a company writing accounting software. You sign an employment contract which says, "I will assign rights to the company to all software I write while employed." In your spare time you write a spam filter. Who owns it? You do. That's right, you do. BUT, you have a valid contract with your company which compells you to write a document which says, "I assign the rights to this software to the company." If you fail to do so, you are in breach of contract.

      What about when the contract said, "All software I write while employed by the company belongs to the company?" Are you in breach of contract if you don't assign the rights? You are not. There was no requirement to assign the rights, on an element stating that the rights belong to the company. That element in the contract is contrary to the governing law. If your contract allows it (most do), that element would be severed from the contract. Otherwise, the entire contract would be voided.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
    6. Re:Copyright by Alan+Cox · · Score: 2, Informative

      It depends on the country and even in the USA the state. Its always best to have this on paper.

      My old one with I2IT. Sonix and 3Com basically said

      "If you are doing it on your own time and equipment, it doesn't interfere with work and it doesn't involve or relate to company trade secrets or business then fine"

      Which meant I had to keep out of Linux ISDN and bridging but that was IMHO fine. I2IT and Sonix were thankfully both companies that understood that they were making a net win out of the whole thing and that having an active tcp stack writer did help debug company code now and then 8)

    7. Re:Copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " As I understand it, as far as the copyright law goes, if you create it at work on your companies' computer, the copyright belongs to them."

      Does that mean they own my personal web site then?
      and all of my slashdot karma?
      and my elite high scores in solitiare/minesweeper?
      crap!

    8. Re:Copyright by Spazmania · · Score: 1

      In the US, copyright, trademark and patent law is exclusively federal and thus it applies equally in all 50 states. Contract law is covered almost exclusively by the uniform commercial code, which has been passed in all 50 states and thus applies equally in all 50 states.

      The only two jokers in the deck are UCITA, which I believe has only been passed in Virginia and Maryland, and trade secret law which is different in every state.

      Outside the US, all bets are off. Some countries have no meaningful intellectual property law at all while others have burdensome structures that make the DMCA look positively consumer friendly. But then, we're talking about Verizon and a DMCA issue, which is strictly US.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
    9. Re:Copyright by spazoid12 · · Score: 1

      Then, you missed my point... although you were close.

      while being paid by the employer

      That's the distinction... I suggested that I'm not being paid by the employer, for at least, moments at a time.

      Is that so far fetched? That I might be at my employer's place of business for some portion of time yet not being paid by them during that time?

      The majority of employers (like my last one, InfoSpace) assume to own all of your developments even while not at the employer's place of business (ie. at home), so long as you are employed by them.

      That...is a stretch, if you ask me.

    10. Re:Copyright by spazoid12 · · Score: 1

      You raise some good points.

      And, I recognize that my house analogy was pretty weak...but I often use weak analogies. Sometimes they can be a catalyst for a creative perspective, but mostly I'm just lazy that way.

      The photographer aspect that you raise is a particularly frustrating example for me. At least, when it involves pictures of my likeness, or that of my family. It's interesting how my attitude might shift depending if the photographer is a small-time independent, or a large national chain. My strong interests in privacy rights drive my attitude here. I find it offensive that I might pay a studio to take a portrait of my baby son, and find that they are using that portrait to advertise their services in another region. By preserving their copyright interest all they want is the DRM control over my access to duplicates / reprints. I can live with that, so long as I can control all uses of the picture.

    11. Re:Copyright by spazoid12 · · Score: 1

      well, the question is important:

      The company pays an employee for their work and ideas.

      which ideas, exactly? That's the question.

      all ideas? past, present, future?

      btw, I may have paid the carpenter for more than his labor. I may have paid him for materials, knowledge, advice, management, etc.

    12. Re:Copyright by NotASuit · · Score: 1

      There is a "work for hire" doctrine, but it's not nearly that broad.
      If you are an employee, then stuff you write at work is presumptively owned by the employer. If you are an independent contractor, the waters are more murky.
      Either way, this problem can avoided if your contract specifies who owns the IP for the code you write. That's the best solution.

  3. before the brainless GPL zelots jump on him.. by autopr0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    keep in mind the GPL allows for internal use of modified software without releasing the source code.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:before the brainless GPL zelots jump on him.. by dubious9 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, but its in your best interest to release your changes back to the communtiy so you won't have to manually merge code in later versions.

      When our company needed to use some open source, we had a meeting with the legal department. Basically what they said is that if it didn't contain any proprietary information relating to our line of business then we could release it. Since the project just converted xsl to rtf then we didn't have to worry about it and got a green light.

      Since we've put it into production and release the changes we made back to the community there have been 3 releases that we don't have to maintain ourselves. The whole thing probably saved us about a man year.

      --
      Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
    2. Re:before the brainless GPL zelots jump on him.. by dsplat · · Score: 1
      Yes, but its in your best interest to release your changes back to the communtiy so you won't have to manually merge code in later versions.


      In fact, I believe you have the strongest argument for releasing deltas back to the community. Basically, the benefits of open source are generally the greatest with code that serves a widely used general purpose. Individual developers will do the porting work to new platforms or add specific new features. But everyone gets to leverage the larger body of code.

      You pay for that in one of two ways. First, you can keep all of your work private. You don't release your modification and you can keep the source secret. You have to merge your changes into each subsequent release yourself. You end up paying an additional price for any later work the other contributors do. And there is a very real possibility that someone else will implement the same feature you did, with a different interface.

      The second way you can pay for it is to release your own changes. Your legal department was right to emphasize that you have to exercise caution not to release code that is to be kept proprietary. But you gain the benefits of getting your code out to a wider audience. It will be more rigorously reviewed and tested. It may get enhanced in ways that are useful to you in turn.

      A rule of thumb to use is to do development on open source tools to enhance those tools only. If the latest release of something no longer runs on your development platform, do the port and release the changes back to the community. Let your company's lawyers understand the reasons for the code you wrote. There are often two reasons. The first is because you needed a tool that did that. The second is that the cheapest, fastest way to get it was to enhance an open source project that was close. And releasing your own changes back to the community will usually cost less and get you more in the long run.
      --
      The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
    3. Re:before the brainless GPL zelots jump on him.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you derive a significant economic advantage from the fact that noone else has your code. Software doesn't have to be sold or distributed to be valuable.

    4. Re:before the brainless GPL zelots jump on him.. by Squarewav · · Score: 1

      that's not the problem the problem is that some developer for example may include some gpl code, possibly without thinking about it simply couse they are used to useing it for thier gpl based programs (aka cut&paste programmers). next thing you know the company releases the software, someone finds outs and the company ends up in hot water. Unless the company keeps the closed source and open source programmers seperated, such a thing is very possible. gpl code sneaks into closed source all the time thing is unless its a very clear GUI thing that people can spot and say "hey thats a gpl widget" its not likely to get reported

    5. Re:before the brainless GPL zelots jump on him.. by dwoolridge · · Score: 1
      Yes, but its in your best interest to release your changes back to the communtiy so you won't have to manually merge code in later versions.
      That's assuming releasing your changes back to the community means they get merged in the first place. MySQL is a good example of this.
    6. Re:before the brainless GPL zelots jump on him.. by Analogy+Man · · Score: 1

      I think the key here is that there is a distinction between a "commodity component" and a system which has real business logic in it. The wonderful thing about open source is that the greater community avoids repetition and rework to enhance and maintain the reusable components. The money to be made is in integrating that all together as a business solution.

      --
      When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
  4. love? by v(*_*)vvvv · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We have recently been doing more and more modification and customization of open source products, and we would love to give some of this back

    What does he mean by "love"? Does he have a choice?

    1. Re:love? by finkployd · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, if he is not distributing binaries, you do not have to distribute source code. You are allowed to modify GPL code for your own use without filtering the code back to the community.

      Finkployd

  5. Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by stevew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The first question that needs clarification in my mind is - Is your company distributing open-source code that they have modified?

    If that is the case - then if it is GPL'd code, you need to release it according to the license. If it is a BSDish license that isn't the case.

    Probably the best piece of advice - get your company to emit a policy on the subject. You may not like the results, but at least it will be a definitive answer.

    --
    Have you compiled your kernel today??
    1. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      The first question that needs clarification in my mind is - Is your company distributing open-source code that they have modified?

      If that is the case - then if it is GPL'd code, you need to release it according to the license.

      and let's finish that sentence...

      To the people you distributed the GPL code based item to. you do NOT have to give it to the world freely and willy nilly.. just to whom you distributed the binaries to... oh and hope they dont post it all on usenet, because you cant tell them not to.

      99% of the time it's safe as company X doesn't give a care about that.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by wbattestilli · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is not actually true of the GPL.

      If they are making programs for internal use then they are obligated to release nothing.

      If they are distributing the code to another party, then they have to make the source available to that party.

      They GPL never says that they have to release the code to the public, however; the party receiving the above mentioned code would have the right to release it to the public under the GPL.

    3. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by Zathrus · · Score: 5, Informative

      If it's true GPL code and they're distributing it to outside customers, well, they're idiots. Because they now either have to remove the GPL code entirely or release the entire application under the GPL.

      If it's LGPL then they need only release any modifications to the library or other LGPL'd code they did. Or, again, remove the LGPL code -- presuming they're distributing it at all.

      If it's BSD or similar it's irrelevant, as you said, as long as they keep the copyright notices, etc. in tact.

      Essentially, check the license before you use the code and know what it means. We use a great deal of LGPL, BSD, and public domain code in our products. We stay away from GPL though -- we don't have any intentions of distributing at this point, but if we did we'd rather not have that problem.

      As far as remitting work back to the community - talk to your managers. If your managers are decent then they'll understand the issues involved. It may take some time, but most likely you'll be given the OK. After all, think about what you've modified in the code -- does it give any advantage to your competitors? Does it reduce the value of your product to your customers? Are the changes bugfixes or new logic that's only applicable to your company?

      Actually, we do have one GPL program that we've modified... vsftpd. Again, no plans on redistributing it, but if we did it'd be no problem submitting the changes. They're deeply specific to our company and our usage and would utterly screw up anyone else who used them (things like automatically assuming paths on puts and gets so our customers don't have to do cd, and automatically moving files on completion of transfers (which might be useful)).

      Do not work on OSS during company time though, not without explicit written consent. And many companies are now claiming anything you work on, even outside of work, to be their IP (which is on somewhat shaky grounds)... so if you want to work on OSS outside of work, check your contract and get a release from management if needed. Don't just do it -- in the worst case you're really, utterly screwing the project to the point where it may have to be removed from the net (at least officially). Most companies won't give a crap, as long as you're not doing it on company time and it's not competing with them.

    4. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by be-fan · · Score: 1

      Note: if you're "releasing" to entities within the same corporation (subdivisions and the like) you don't have to release any sources.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    5. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by jgerman · · Score: 1
      That's an interesting point. Are you at that point really safe from having to release the sources. I haven't read the GPL in a while. What's the definition of distributing, what constitutes a party involved in a distribution transaction?


      Obviously it's silly to think that distributing a modified OSS package to an employee entitles them to all the rights granted under the GPL, but it may be a loophole.

      --
      I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
    6. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The courts would laugh you out of the room if you brought a case against yourself claiming copyright infringement. They might even fine you just to keep you from wasting their time again in the future.

    7. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by jgerman · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure I understand your point. Who said anything about bringing a suit against yourself?

      --
      I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
    8. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by Anthony+Boyd · · Score: 1
      And many companies are now claiming anything you work on, even outside of work, to be their IP (which is on somewhat shaky grounds)...

      Please note that in California, these kinds of conditions are not legal. If you & your employer are in California and you are asked to sign something that gives a company control of your non-work-related code, you could:

      • Chuckle to yourself while you sign it, and then ignore it and do what you want on your own time anyway, or...
      • Tell them it's not legal, and strike it from the contract.
      --
      My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
    9. Re:Are you modifying/shipping Open Source? by Sabalon · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that be "according to the license." ?

  6. Justin Frankel by Transient0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think Justin Frankel would tell you that you can't ever be sure that you have any creative control over what you are doing on company time.

    The only ways to remain certain that you have complete control are to either work on your own or with a small group in a small company and then leave as soon as they get bought out by the big guys.

    --
    lysergically yours
    1. Re:Justin Frankel by Zathrus · · Score: 0, Troll

      I think Justin Frankel would tell you that you can't ever be sure that you have any creative control over what you are doing on company time.

      And I think the vast majority of people would say "duh".

      It's on company time, of course you don't have control over it. They do. If you work on it outside of working hours, not using company resources, that's another matter. But check your contract first.

  7. Charge for it. by Zaphod+B · · Score: 4, Informative

    Remember that open-source is not necessarily free-as-in-beer. Your company can charge for the source code and the binaries if it wants, it just needs to use an open-source license (insert heavily-compressed flamewar here).

    Also you can make quite clear that you will only support YOUR version of the product and that if they choose to modify the source they're on their own.

    If you're just talking about donating code snippets, well, then you need someone with more experience in that than I.

    --
    Zaphod B
    When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have /bin/cp
    1. Re:Charge for it. by tshak · · Score: 1

      Remember that open-source is not necessarily free-as-in-beer. Your company can charge for the source code and the binaries if it wants...

      But the problem is that once your company releases the source to the buyer, that buyer can then redistribute it for free or for a minimal cost. So, in many ways, once the "cat is out of the bag", open-source is "free-as-in-beer".

      --

      There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
    2. Re:Charge for it. by malfunct · · Score: 1

      Yeah but all it takes is one person with a compiler and cd burner to buy your product, request the source and then release (without changes even) that binary and source with no recourse. Sounds like a bad way to make money if you expect your software to be the product. OSS is great for consulting though, because you are paid to build a custom solution and the chances of some other customer being able to use it with no changes is low.

      --

      "You can now flame me, I am full of love,"

    3. Re:Charge for it. by Arandir · · Score: 1

      Sure you can charge for your software. But there's no stopping your first customer from becoming your instant competitor. That's why in the real world all Free Software is Free Beer. I know of no exception once there's more than a dozen or so initial customers.

      You can't base a business model on selling Free Software. You need to base it on support, services, related hardware, etc.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    4. Re:Charge for it. by Zaphod+B · · Score: 1

      ...which oftentimes is more lucrative than selling the product in the first place. I know a number of non-OSS companies that practise this model as well.

      Good point though.

      I suspect that if he wanted to release an entire app into the OSS pool, his company would insist that it be an app from which they would derive little money from the sale.

      Neat little code tricks, functions, etc., OTOH, could very easily be released OSS.

      --
      Zaphod B
      When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have /bin/cp
    5. Re:Charge for it. by kwerle · · Score: 1

      Others have said that this is not feasible, but I worked for a company that charged for a modified version of gcc. We only had about 3 clients that wanted it, and all 3 paid (they didn't know about each other).

      So this can work...

    6. Re:Charge for it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can only charge a reasonable fee. Read the GPL.

    7. Re:Charge for it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but only one customer ever needs to buy it and release it into the wild.

    8. Re:Charge for it. by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      That's for the source, not necessarily the binary. And, if the market will bear the price, it is de facto 'reasonable'.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  8. Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please read the following before committing your IP and company to Open Source:

    Open Source Doesn't Make Economic Sense For Most

    The open source organization has presented a few cases that supposedly explain why OS works economically. However, if you examine the cases objectively you will find that the cases are flimsy and non-specific and do not address any specific concerns. They attempt to bolster their case by pointing out a few "successes", among which Caldera and Red Hat are displayed as shining examples.

    The real economic question of the OS model is how is money made, and who is making the money. Who is being rewarded financially for the enormous development effort? The open source initiative claims that there are at least four different models that allow someone to reap rewards. Oddly, it is not mentioned that it is not necessarily the people who did the development work that gain financially.

    The four primary business cases mentioned by OS proponents are "Selling Support", "Loss Leader", "Widget Frosting" and "Accessorizing."

    The first case proposes that money can be made via selling support for the free software product. This is by far the strongest case and is proven to work, for a few small companies. The two companies that are shown as positive examples of this business model are Red Hat and Caldera, who distribute and support the Linux operating system. What is never mentioned is that neither of these two companies has contributed significantly in relative terms to the Linux development process. Its important to note that using this business model, the people that make the money are usually not the ones who have invested in the development process. So much for the strongest case.

    The second case is based on the idea that you give away a product as open source so you can make money selling a closed source program. This also can work, but it should be noted that the money is being made off the closed source product and not off of the open source. An example of this model would be Netscape, who gives away the source code of their client browser so the OS community can do development, but keeps their "cash cow" products completely closed. Obviously, this case may only work if you have a software product that lends itself to this sort of "give away the razor and make money on the blades" system. The truth is that the vast majority of software is monolithic. So much for the loss leader case.

    The third case, "Widget Frosting", sounds completely practical. The premise that hardware makers produce open source software so that the OS development community will work for free to produce better drivers and interface tools for their hardware products. It sounds great on the surface, especially for the company that produces the hardware: they get free drivers and do not have to pay for expensive developers. The OS community wins by getting presumably stable drivers and tools. What is not mentioned is the reason hardware makers usually don?t do this is because they do not want to reveal trade secrets regarding their hardware design. Production of efficient drivers requires an intimate knowledge of the hardware the driver is for. It is almost always the case that it is in the hardware developers? best interest to keep their hardware secrets close to home. This also brings up the question of why isn?t hardware "open"? So much for the frosting case.

    The final case, "Accessorizing", is similar to the first, but throws in the idea of selling books and complete systems with the open source software, and other accessories as well. It is obvious that selling books qualifies as support, and that it really belongs in the first case. The idea of selling computer systems, T-Shirts, dolls, again begs the question: "Who is making the money?" As with the first case, it is not necessarily the people who have done the development work. Additionally, the question of how much money can be made selling books, t-shirts, mugs, etc, is never answered. O?Reilly Associates is frequent

    1. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by truthsearch · · Score: 1

      This from a person who puts his home page as Netscape.com? Your home site (employer?) is the first commercial company (probably) to have released their product to the open source community.

      --
      Developers: We can use your help.
    2. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by BrynM · · Score: 3, Insightful
      THIS DOCUMENT CAN BE RECOPIED AND REDISTRIBUTED WITHOUT RESTRICTION, HOWEVER ADDITIONS/MODIFICATIONS/CORRECTIONS SHOULD BE LABELED AS SUCH WHERE THEY OCCUR.
      So are you saying that this document is Open Source/Public Domain? By your standards, I shouldn't have wasted my time reading it then and someone shouldn't have wasted their time writing it. Though it may have very important points, the stance of the document reeks of FUD.

      By the way, who is "The open source organization"?

      --
      US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
    3. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Debillitatus · · Score: 1

      Hear, here!

      --

      Come on, give it up, that's

    4. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by dubious9 · · Score: 1

      Why did somebody mod this as offtopic? Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it's off topic. How can an article related to open source in the work place be off topic here?

      That said the article missed an important benefit: I call it open source framework. The idea is to use open source in your project wherever possible to save on man time then compartmentalize your proprietary code so that it isn't in violation of whatever license the open source used.

      Now you are getting free updates to a certain part of your product. Software managers know that maintence can be upwards of 75% of lifecycle costs. You can offload a significant portion of that cost to open source and still maintain the rights to sell your closed software.

      The best open source stuff here would be the general utilities and not specific programs. If you use the framework and are careful about the license you reduce development time and cost, reduce maintenance time and cost, and and receive free advice from other developers that are working on the open source code.

      This I believe is the open source model that applies to most companies.

      --
      Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
    5. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      No, it is not an Open Source document. It is not released under a compatible Open Source License.

    6. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      And what a great move that was. Zero revenue. Mass layoffs. Needed to get bought out by a media conglomerate, who is now bleeding money.

      Great strategy!

    7. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by ThogScully · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I feel like a fish catching a hook, but I'll reply for a bit. First off, this is off-topic. This story is about someone using opensource software in business services and wondering how to contribute changes/improvements back to the community while keeping his company's IP separated.

      Second, open source models for profit are not based on the sale of the software, so since opensource companies don't sell their software, don't assume they aren't profitable. You don't credit Red Hat and Caldera with any development, but they most certainly do contribute and make their money off of both support and the package they sell their OS in. They prepare everything for a user to have a complete OS and that requires many tweaks to everything for uniformity and integration. They also develop and maintain OS updates as patches become available so their users can update their systems.

      Your discussion against why opensource software is not better than commercial is only in talking about how gcc is not up to par with commercial compilers, but you haven't proven that point. As a cross-compiler, I'll bet gcc is probably one of, if not the, best out there. I guess it won't compile as well for a P4 as an Intel designed P4 compiler, but those details are tough to notice and not so applicable. Then your argument here trails into how there aren't enough qualified contributors in the opensource world to make competitive software, while I would suggest that there is more qualification in the opensource world. Since you didn't support your argument, I won't support this to save space and at least match the convincing-ness of your argument.

      You say that opensource software was not responsible for the internet's success, but open protocols were. The first step was open protocols with clear definitions. The next was software to implement them, which is still largely opensource. Apache, BIND, sendmail are always at the top of the list and I promise if you turned off every Apache, BIND, and sendmail server right now, you wouldn't bother trying to use what's left of the internet.

      By the way, how does Netscape's contributions to opensource help them make a profit? I've never felt inclined to buy Netscape's enterprise servers simply because I use Mozilla.

      And this document won't be recopied or redistributed by me, as I'm not as willing to make a fool of myself like you have. But then again, I did bother to write this long reply.... oh well.
      -N

      --
      I've nothing to say here...
    8. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      For the most part people use Apache, BIND, sendmail, et al simply because THEY ARE FREE. Indeed, if people didn't use BIND or sendmail they would be much better off considering the holes in these products.

      The fact is, people love Open Source because it is FREE (as in beer). Corporations love it too, they get all of those developers to work for free (as in beer) while they reap the profits. In Redhats case the executives made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars off of the community while contributing very little back.

      By contributing to Open Source you are devaluing yourself and the programming profession.

    9. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by truthsearch · · Score: 1

      Then explain JBoss, O'Reilly, IBM, Merril Lynch, and others, all who use and support open source development. Oh, and how about Linus and his $200,000 per year job? This is only the beginning, while people get used to the idea that restricting bits to make them more valuable isn't possible. Is the developers' services which are paid for, not bits. About 5% of developers work for software companies. Most are paid for services to other industries. Get a grip. We'll all still be making plenty tomorrow.

      --
      Developers: We can use your help.
    10. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      oh yes, O'Reilly, IBM, Merrill Lynch LOVE OPEN SOURCE! They get all those developers to work for them for free! Must be great, don't need to pay those pesky engineers anymore - they were making too much anyway.

      P.S. Linus doesn't make 200k a year developing OSS.

    11. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That new media conglomerate doesn't even use the netscape code they bought in their own software, why should anyone else?

      If AOL replaced IE with Netscape in their own product they would instantly have millions upon millions of people using Netscape.

      If they used Netscape in their own code instead of IE they could even develop their own home set top box without having to pay license fees to a third company, who is their own competitor.

      All in all, a very poorly managed marketting driven company.

      It is amusing to me that when companies start they are always driven by the engineer staff, but once they begin to mature, the pointy haired bosses arrive to "manage" the company, and most of the time these people take the initial successes and drive it into the ground.

    12. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Zathrus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It is easy to see that the foundation of the Internet was built on open protocols.

      Factually inaccurate.

      Yes, IP, TCP, and UDP are open protocols, as are most of the protocols built on top of them (telnet, ftp, dns, etc).

      But the single most prevalent TCP/IP stack, from which virtually every existing TCP/IP stack is inherited, comes from BSD, which is open source. In fact, the litmus test for being able to connect to the Internet was whether or not you could communicate with a BSD stack system, not whether or not you complied to the published RFCs. BSD's stack did vary from the RFC in some cases, and if you actually wanted to work you'd better comply to those changes, not the other way around.

      Of course, Microsoft is now the dominant TCP/IP stack. But that's ok - it's BSD based. If you look at the original Winsock32 code you'll find BSD disclaimers all over the compiled code. You won't find it in Winsock16, but then again Winsock16 sucked rocks and didn't work much of the time.

      Did some people implement entirely new TCP/IP stacks without use of the BSD source? Sure. But it took far longer to get them working properly, and longer than that to make them efficient. It's very hard to argue that the existance of the freely usable BSD stack was not a large impetus to the susccess of TCP/IP, and thus the Internet.

      It [GCC] lags its commercial counterparts in both efficiency and features.

      Lags in features? So I suppose it wasn't the first compiler to fully implement the STL in a bug-free manner? Or to implement most features of C99?

      Hell, most commercial compilers still have problems with the STL. Few have even begun implementing C99, much less completed large portions of it. Yeah, they may be more efficient, but that means bugger all if they won't compile the code in the first place.

      And GCC is the most efficient compiler for a large number of platforms -- probably because it's the only one. Embedded programming has moved largely toward the use of GCC because of reduced support requirements on the manufacturers. And we're talking about a group (embedded programmers) where efficiency is the number one concern.

      I'm not a OSS zealot, but I also don't discount its value.

    13. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by chromatic · · Score: 1

      Sorry, your comment about O'Reilly, IBM, and Merrill Lynch is wrong. All three companies support open source development financially, among other ways. All three companies also employ system administrators and programmers who work with open source software.

      I don't personally know anyone at Merrill Lynch who's contributed to an open source project while on the clock. People at O'Reilly and IBM who do so regularly.

      --
      how to invest, a novice's guide
    14. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Sorry, the BSD TCP/IP stack is not a protocol. It is simply an implementation. Oh I am sure that using that reference implementation made it easier for the megacorporations like IBM, MS, etc to speed up their own TCP/IP implementations. Yes, I agree, it sure is good for the corporations!!!

    15. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by worldcitizen · · Score: 1
      Your four "primary" cases are missing one of the most common ways for companies to benefit from Open Sourcing a project: USING the resulting product.
      1. You start a project for writing something that you want to USE
      2. You release it as Open Source so that other people can contribute
      3. You benefit from a product that is better than what you originally produced
      Of course, I'm not talking about releasing the project that gives your company the competitive advantage. There's plenty of other tools that are not providing your edge yet you develop them because you need them. You benefit by sharing the effort among people who have similar needs. The Apache webserver is an excellent example. The companies where its developers worked benefited by getting an enterprise-class web server to serve their pages.

      But you're saying that "The vast majority of the machines on the Internet run on closed source operating systems running mostly closed source software" so maybe you haven't heard about Apache...

      If you're not losing competitive advantages you can use the following calculation:

      open sourcing cost = time and other development costs of creating an internal tool - time and other develoment costs your developers spent on the open source project

      Estimate the benefit/cost ratios and go for the better one.

      Not every project is as successful as Apache but you can always calculate more than one benefit/cost ratios based on diferent success scenarios. Even projects with low success (== little collaboration from outside developers) may be worthwile because of the extremely low incremental cost (you won't need much effort to manage those non-existing external collaborators!)

      I am sure that many companies create plenty of useful internal tools that could evolve into providing more value to the originating company if they were open sourced.

      Personally, I work at a software manufacturer. For companies whose business is creating software, nearly every product is providing (or expected to provide) a competitive advantage so this model doesn't apply.

    16. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Sorry, the BSD TCP/IP stack is not a protocol" Uhm.. are you exceptionally dim? Did he ever say anything to imply that it was?

      He completed disproved two points you made in your original ramble (which I see you're crossposting all over the place), and you completely failed to notice. You are trolling, right?

    17. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      What a load of hooey. Yeah, it was good for the corporations. So what? It was good for everyone -- Linux's stack was BSD based as well. Oh good for Red Hat I'm sure you'll say. Good for everyone -- without it we wouldn't have the Internet and that's been a huge boon in social discourse.

      As far as what the programmer gets out of it -- the same thing anyone gets out of donating time or money to any cause. If nothing else, you get a feeling of contribution and helping people. Maybe you'll get some work out of it too -- there are numerous people who have gotten contracts, jobs, or other compensation for open source work. No, the majority hasn't. So what?

      Frankly, I suggest you go back to writing machine language code. No, not assembly. Machine language. You're apparantly unable to see the advantage of not reinventing the wheel everytime you need a library to do something. And while you may say that you should just pay for all those wheels, I call bullshit on that too... if that's true then I hope you're paying for every invention or idea you use anytime, anywhere. No, you can't use flint and steel to light a fire because you're not paying the descendants of the first person who figured out how to do it.

      What a sad little mind you have if you can't figure this out. I may not get anything back directly for contributing to open source, but maybe my contribution will inspire someone else to do the same. And maybe I'll use that application they create later on. But I suppose that I still haven't been compensated for my work in your terms because you can't count those kinds of things.

      Shrug... you're really not worth the time, but I'm bored at work since our wonderful Exchange server has been down for >24 hours now and most of the work I have to do needs data out of my email box.

    18. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Disproved what? The original statement is that the internet was built on OPEN STANDARDS and then he goes off about an IMPLEMENTATION of the standard, which is irrelevant.

      As for his other "proofs", they are not proofs at all. gcc is inferior to its commercial counterparts in efficiency. It is only used because it is FREE (as in beer).

      I love it when you guys scream "troll" whenever anyone challenges your worldview.

    19. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Baloney to the statement that the Internet wouldn't be around except for the BSD TCP/IP stack. That is totally unsupported speculation and is certainly not true. Open standards are important, Open Source is not.

    20. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Disproved what? The original statement is that the internet was built on OPEN STANDARDS and then he goes off about an IMPLEMENTATION of the standard, which is irrelevant.
      Since he does that to disprove the fact that the internet is based only on open standards, and not on open implementations, I don't call this irrelevant (on the contrary, if it had been a protocol it would have strengthened your point, which is of course not what he wanted to do)

    21. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      The Internet is based on Open Standards not open implementations. The particular BSD implementation you speak of could go away tommorrow and it would hardly make a difference. A reference implementation does make it a lot easier to build additional implementations, but that is besides the point here.

    22. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by TobiasSodergren · · Score: 1

      I think that the focus is shifting towards the free as in speech part. At least for banks, gouvernment and others that find that having access to the source is a good thing.

    23. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      The original statement is that the internet was built on OPEN STANDARDS and then he goes off about an IMPLEMENTATION of the standard, which is irrelevant.

      No, the original statement is that Open Source did not contribute to the success of the Internet, on the premise that it was open standards, and not open source that did the job.

      Exactly which part of "It's very hard to argue that the existance of the freely usable BSD stack was not a large impetus to the susccess of TCP/IP, and thus the Internet." did you not understand?

      Oh, and if you had bothered reading the entire post, you'd see that the open standard was irrelevant. The real standard was the open implementation. And it still is.

      As for his other "proofs", they are not proofs at all. gcc is inferior to its commercial counterparts in efficiency. It is only used because it is FREE (as in beer).

      Depends on the commercial counterpart, but that certainly isn't always true. You also ignored the bits about implementation of standards/features (which, btw, was one of your original points that you've forgotten about already), and the increasing use in the embedded community because of the ease of porting, support, and efficiency.

      Oh, and we're licensed for IBM's VisualAge C/C++ compiler here. We use gcc/g++ instead. VA may compile a bit faster, but the resultant code isn't signficantly faster, it doesn't implement the standards as well as gcc does (which severely limits our options for libraries), and it doesn't produce debuggable code. Oh, and gdb and ddd are far superior debugging tools to dbx or the VA debugger.

      We scream troll when someone blathers about things in a blatantly incorrect manner and then starts ignoring/forgetting things when they're pointed out how incorrect they are. You sir, are a troll.

    24. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      You can believe what you want, but TCP/IP did not start becoming widely implemented until after the availability of the free BSD stack.

      Would you care for me to start listing all of the other open standards that have failed miserably due to a lack of a high quality reference implementation? Here's a starter... it's also only 3 letters.

      O
      S
      I

    25. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by ThogScully · · Score: 1
      The Internet is based on Open Standards not open implementations. The particular BSD implementation you speak of could go away tommorrow and it would hardly make a difference.

      Actually, you're wrong, but it's already been stated why this is wrong several times and you didn't read it those times either...

      A reference implementation does make it a lot easier to build additional implementations, but that is besides the point here.

      That IS the point. You don't see a value to opensource. It prevents you from having to reinvent the wheel. -N -N

      --
      I've nothing to say here...
    26. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by ThogScully · · Score: 1

      Since this thread has now caused such a stir, I feel less like a hooked fish and will return momentarily...

      For the most part people use Apache, BIND, sendmail, et al simply because THEY ARE FREE. Indeed, if people didn't use BIND or sendmail they would be much better off considering the holes in these products.

      Well, your point was that the internet would be here without those servers. My point that it would come to a halt right now if everyone shut down their servers of just those 3 programs (not even including competitive opensource projects like other http servers, mail servers, and dns servers.). But since you mention it, they are far more feature-rich than any closed-source products I know of. That's why I chose them. When you're buying a server product, you're not buying a ton - almost any company can afford the $1000+ price tag once if it's appropriate. We could have when I was building our servers, but we chose not to.

      The fact is, people love Open Source because it is FREE (as in beer). Corporations love it too, they get all of those developers to work for free (as in beer) while they reap the profits. In Redhats case the executives made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars off of the community while contributing very little back.

      I to like the free part - corporations care much less I imagine. But they are paying the developers for impelementing solutions. Those developers often use opensource products. Everyone's getting paid or making money here. Those developers are the opensource developers because they are contributing. And I don't know anyone at RedHat, but I'll bet the developers there would be a little insulted by your claim that they make no contribution if you carried any weight with your opinion.

      By contributing to Open Source you are devaluing yourself and the programming profession.

      I make money by designing systems of software and hardware to complete a task. I use opensource software to do that. My company earns money based on the services we sell that we perform using machines running opensource software. As part owner, I make money based on the services we sell that I have implemented using opensource software. If I go a step further and contribute to that opensource software, then I help improve the projects that I use. They get better and in turn help make the services I'm implementing more feature-rich and stable.

      This makes me valuable. To bring this argument down to your level. I'm not devaluing me. I'm devaluing you and differentiating the programming profession from people like you.
      -N

      --
      I've nothing to say here...
    27. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Actually, I am right. And I have shown why in the parent post. Please read it. The implementation can go away and it has little impact. It is the open standard that is important.

      As for "reinventing the wheel" I have addresed that argument in another post in this thread.

    28. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · · Score: 2, Insightful
      "The four primary business cases mentioned by OS proponents are "Selling Support", "Loss Leader", "Widget Frosting" and "Accessorizing.""

      You forgot a couple:

      1. Making sure of a good supply of poker chips. A healthy OSS movement is a good bargaining tool in contract negotiations with proprietary vendors.

      2. Never having to start from scratch ... it's easier/cheaper/faster to take an OSS program that is almost what you need and customize it then to start from scratch and write virginal proprietary code.

      It is very hard to convince qualified engineers that they should do such boring and unglamorous work without any sort of financial reward. You are oblivious of the large numbers of well-paid programmers who work on OSS projects as a part of their regular employment, and those that specialize in customizing OSS for their clients. It's financially as rewarding as coding proprietary software.

    29. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      That hardly proves that the BSD stack caused TCP/IP to become widely adopted. It sure helped, but was not nescessary.

      OSI failed because it didn't offer many advantages and was overly complex. It was not needed. I am sure some maniac implemented a open OSI reference.

    30. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Spazmania · · Score: 1

      The third case, "Widget Frosting", sounds completely practical. The premise that hardware makers produce open source software so that the OS development community will work for free to produce better drivers and interface tools for their hardware products. It sounds great on the surface, especially for the company that produces the hardware: they get free drivers and do not have to pay for expensive developers. The OS community wins by getting presumably stable drivers and tools. What is not mentioned is the reason hardware makers usually don?t do this is because they do not want to reveal trade secrets regarding their hardware design. Production of efficient drivers requires an intimate knowledge of the hardware the driver is for. It is almost always the case that it is in the hardware developers? best interest to keep their hardware secrets close to home. This also brings up the question of why isn?t hardware "open"? So much for the frosting case.

      And if you buy that, I have a 12 terahertz processor I'd like to sell you.

      There are no real secrets in main stream computer hardware, trade or otherwise. Why not? Because the companies patent anything even moderately novel, and the patent process requires full disclosure. Anything else is subject to reverse engineering, which is how some of the OSS drivers are built.

      These days, a main stream hardware company that refuses to disclose its interfaces is only doing itself harm. If it actually has something commercially valuable, its rivals will reverse engineer it anyway and whether it does or doesn't holding that information too tightly excludes the group of people most inclined to be first-adopters.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
    31. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by ThogScully · · Score: 1

      Someone else already pointed out that the open standard is not what's implemented. The BSD implementation is what is in use. That's not a standard, but an open implementation. Besides, the point of my post was still that the opensource software is responsible for the internet running. It's what is powering it, with good reason, regardless of your fantasies about commercial software. Without open source software, the internet would essentially be abandoned now and a new one would essentially have to be built in its place from scratch. Hell, even the Windows machines on it would be lost without the BSD implementation, so losing that implementation wouldn't even leave the leader in commercial software. So what exactly do you expect to be left running after the opensource BSD implementation is removed as easily as you describe?
      -N

      --
      I've nothing to say here...
    32. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by photo+storm · · Score: 1
      Now would be a good time to point out that neither RedHat nor Caldera is actually profitable.

      A brief look at the latest data available to me for both companies suggests that your remarks about the viability of open-source based busienss models are somewhat on the ball. All the uproar about how rich the original owners of RedHat and Caldera is accurate, but it is entirely the fault of investors who didn't know better. There is very little reason for a company that sells a free product (I'm looking at you, RedHat!) to be valued at a price approaching $140/share.

      'Nuff said.

      I can't say that I agree with your opinion on the quality of open source software, or about credit for the success of the Internet. This was already rebutted pretty well by a few vocal minds.

      --
      Insert witty, contrived comment here.
    33. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      "but I'll bet the developers there would be a little insulted by your claim that they make no contribution if you carried any weight with your opinion"

      Sorry, I never said that they made NO contribution. I said VERY LITTLE, relative to amount of OSS work that goes on - even though they receive most of the financial reward.

      As for you, I suspect you are an IT support person - not a professional developer. In your case I would imagine you and your company loves OSS software. After all who doesn't like free (as in beer)?

    34. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Apache is only "successful" (widely used) because it is free (as in beer). People like free stuff.

    35. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by ctve · · Score: 1
      I think you are wrong.

      Open Source makes sense for many businesses.

      Here are my reasons...

      a) Exposure in a crowded marketplace. Probably the hardest thing that companies have to deal with is getting people to try/use their software. Make it free, and open source, and maybe people will use it. Other people will install it for others.

      You can get known as a hotshot company for development. The people who take your software may well come to you for other software (sometimes unrelated).

      b) People want solutions, not software. Sure, they could set up a piece of software they downloaded themselves, but what if there's some weird settings, or they just don't want to deal with the hassles? They could go to someone else, but they're likely to go to the original vendor.

    36. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The implementation can go away and it has little impact."

      Nope. Because in this case the real standard is only defined by the BSD implimentation. Take away the BSD stack, and you have taken away the real standard. And the result? 'it's the end of the internet as we know it!"

      (offtopic: that 'quote' is a good argument for copyrights to expire in a signifigant fraction of a human lifetime, as my point is made clearer because people will recognize the song it came from. wait too long, and people will no longer remember the song)

    37. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I won't argue that being free didn't help apache become successful, but, do you honestly think that 65+% of the internet web sites would be run by apache if it didn't do the job well? I don't think so.
      Apache is successful because it WORKS, because it does something that is WIDELY NEEDED, and because it is FREE. Honestly I don't see it being as successful without all three, and it I think could be successful if FREE was replaced with M$ quality marketing, and marginally successful if it was not widely needed. But if it didn't work well, IIS would rule, and apache would be next to nothing.

    38. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Follow up: look at netcraft. notice how almost all of the growth in the last year is only in apache? close to 2 million new apache domains, and almost no change in anything else in the last year

    39. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Nope, wrong. The standard is defined by the various RFC's, not the implementation. For gods sake.

    40. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      I think you need to learn exactly what DOES "run" the internet. Cisco/Juniper routers. Unix and NT boxes.

      Hard to believe for the slashdot crowd but the internet doesn't run on linux.

    41. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by rhavyn · · Score: 1

      FYI, Linux's TCP/IP stack is not BSD based, it is, and always has been a completely new implementation.

    42. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by rhavyn · · Score: 1

      Has anyone else in this thread noticed that whenever someone backs this guy into a corner, he responds with "well, you aren't an open source developer anyways"?

      Simple truth of it all is that to 99% of the world, software is an expense. If companies can find a way to employ software developers to work on OSS specific to that companies needs, not only will OSS developers remain employed, but there will be no need to pay for software, and companies will end up paying less for software. Kinda sucks for the commercial software houses, but no one is crying for the horse and buggy manufacturers.

    43. Re:Why Open Source is bad for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Ummm... Dude... Uh... Troll.

  9. Re:Simply put: I DO by pubjames · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, sometimes I will be working with a OSS software package and I see a way to make a little change to make it better, or fix a bug. Why should any employer/client worry about that?

  10. A quick list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    • Don't ask for permission. What they don't know, can't hurt them!
    • Be like Nike; Just Do It! Need to write a routine for the internal process? Just slap the GPL on top and release it on Sourceforge.
    • Make use of the resources available. Do you not have enough time to work on your own projects? Just circumvent the firewall and telnet to your home machine. The office is more comfortable, anyway.
    • It works the other way you know. Need a routine for an internal project? Just use it and release the changes.
    • If all else fails; lie. Claim it wasn't you. Cover your tracks. Call the BSA if you need a diversion in a hurry.

    Thats what I did when I was at SCO, anyway!
    1. Re:A quick list by confused+one · · Score: 1
      Thats what I did when I was at SCO, anyway!

      hmmm, I wonder why your not there anymore???

      Oh yeah, they fired you.

    2. Re:A quick list by IO+ERROR · · Score: 1
      I actually brought my personal laptop, some lengths of Cat5 cable and a tiny Linksys 4-port 10/100 switch to work. I did work stuff on my work computer and personal stuff on my personal laptop (which just happened to be at work). Then I used ppp-over-ssh to connect to my home network (long before anyone had nice scripts to do this for you; I had to roll my own script, get it through the SOCKS firewall, etc).

      Literally everything I did on the personal laptop in this arrangement, Web browsing, mail, everything, ran through the ppp-over-ssh connection. And nobody complained.

      --
      How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
  11. Duh by p3d0 · · Score: 1

    That's why he's asking about paperwork and policies. If they sign a contract saying they don't own certain kinds of code, then that can supersede the "work for hire" copyright issue.

    --
    Patrick Doyle
    I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
  12. Anyone know of some OSS MRP Software? by Real+World+Stuff · · Score: 0, Funny

    TIA

    --
    If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
  13. One of the first questions is... by confused+one · · Score: 1
    What license does the original open source code fall under. If, for example, the base code was GPL, then your code may already be GPL by definition...

    This is how I understand it. There are some issues concerning which libraries you have to use, etc. to maintain fundamental ownership of your code (beyond perhaps a copyright acknowledgement), etc.

    I too, need to go re-read the liscense docs (GPL, GNU, BSD, etc.)

    1. Re:One of the first questions is... by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      "If, for example, the base code was GPL, then your code may already be GPL by definition..."

      Will people stop ths FUD already?
      If your code contains GPL'ed code then your entire codebase is not automatically GPL'ed!!!
      This "GPL is viral"-FUD must die.

  14. And in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...How to run an ebay business selling your company's items

    1. Re:And in other news... by JUSTONEMORELATTE · · Score: 1

      ...How to run an ebay business selling your company's items
      Oh come on, who would do that?

      --

    2. Re:And in other news... by blonde+rser · · Score: 1

      It's too bad that the parent is so funny becuase it is the most insightful comment I've read so far. Although the problem has been obfuscated by talking about things like open source and developers and IP what's really being asked is quite simple (as displayed by parent). If I worked on someone elses farm I might have a very strong urge to box up a bunch of food and send it off to starving children in 3rd world countries. This desire is certainly altruistic. And I might have even tilled the fields and planted the seeds and harvested the crop. So the food very much feels like mine to do something altruistic with. But there is no question here that this would be illegal in this case (I'm not willing to say that sending food to starving children is wrong... just illegal in this case).

      Now there may be an argument to be made that returning code to the community will actually save the company money. Especially if you return buggy code and let the community fix it. But that's something to talk to policy makers at your company about.

      But really is this question puzzling enough for an AskSlashdot?

    3. Re:And in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Urrm.

      If you look more closely at the original ask slashdot you'll notice the question being asked is, "how do you suggest i speak to my superiors for obtaining company approval on contributing code on company time to open source projects?"

    4. Re:And in other news... by gandy909 · · Score: 1

      But what it you threw a few seeds of your own in the ground in an otherwise unused corner of the field and tilled it during your breaks or when your required work was done? Who's corn is it then?

      The way I read the parent I wasn't taking it that he was wanting to give out the same code he was hired to write for sale, but rather 'other' OSS he had maybe downloaded and improved, or his own creations that may have been unrelated. Still, company written policy, or existing law in the absence of policy will prevail, but the poster was simply asking for suggestions...

      --

      (Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
  15. Contribute by stanmann · · Score: 1

    I'm unsure of whether you are suggesting contributing whole products or simply useful widgets. Obviously if your company makes and sells software then contributing entire tools would ultimately cost your company money.

    OTOH, If you are suggesting contributing or modifying useful widgets(sort routine, object loader, file input output routines) then the terms of your contract have bearing. Many employers claim ownership of everything you think while on company time. Obviously the company doesn't want to get trapped into giving away items that cost it money. IOW, you asked a very vague question.

    Most companies are still very wary of a support only model and will need to have it sold effectively. So be prepared to sell the advantages of selling support to selling "solutions".

    --
    Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
  16. Government Copyrights by agentZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not always. As an employee of the US Government, my work is not eligible for copyright protection in accordance with 17 USC 105.

    Thus, the programs I've written and been allowed to distribute are available as public domain. You can check out my programs for computer forensics and system administration, foremost, and md5deep, on Sourceforge.

    1. Re:Government Copyrights by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just downloaded md5deep.. Nice app, although my version of install didn't recognise the -D parameter.

    2. Re:Government Copyrights by Delphix · · Score: 1

      Unless said software is classified, in which you'll also get your security clearance permanently revoked. And you'll get to know the FBI more intimately than you would like.

    3. Re:Government Copyrights by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 1

      So what happens when the USG contributes to GPL code? How does the requirement to relicense under the GPL work with the non-copyright status of the contributed code? Do you have to mark sections you add as non-copyright so that other entities (like, for example, Microsoft) can use those sections free of charge without having to adhere to the GPL?

      --
      Beep beep.
    4. Re:Government Copyrights by agentZ · · Score: 1

      We're not really sure. Our lawyers haven't been able to give me a good answer on that question. On the other hand, we have to be very careful when we borrow code from other projects.

      For example, right now I'm working on a project that makes use of some BSD-licensed code. Although the derivative work, as a whole, is not eligible for copyright protection, those parts of the code that are BSD-licensed have to be singled out and mentioned. It's annoying, but the worth the effort of not having to reimplement basic functions.

    5. Re:Government Copyrights by Darby · · Score: 1

      those parts of the code that are BSD-licensed have to be singled out and mentioned.

      I thought the whole attribution clause was removed from the BSD license a few years back.
      Is this not so, or is something else going on?

    6. Re:Government Copyrights by agentZ · · Score: 1

      It means that all of the code that I write is public domain and has no copyright, but the BSD code has to be labled as being copyrighted and the BSD license included.

      Nice sig, btw.

    7. Re:Government Copyrights by p3d0 · · Score: 1
      If the changes are big enough to be copyrightable on their own, they can be released to the public domain. PD is compatible with GPL.

      If they are too small for that, then I suppose we have a problem.

      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
  17. Well by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful
    IANAD (Developer) but it seems to me that you need to have a contractual agreement with your employer to allow you to contribute code written on company time back to the particular projects on a case by case basis. You are most likely to succeed if you go to them and say, "I have been downloading, customizing, and using these GPL packages, these are the nature of my customizations (...) and I would like to contribute the code back so that it can be reviewed and improved upon by others rather than by me."

    Ultimately, anything you've done on company time is owned by the company, and you have no rights to it whatsoever, NDA or no. Your contract may grant or revoke various rights, of course, where not prohibited by law. But I would definitely go in assuming that all that code belongs to the company and you have no right to distribute it without formal written permission.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      TATMA(There Are Too Many Acronyms)

    2. Re:Well by Fnkmaster · · Score: 1

      I think the argument to make to your managers or to the legal department is "this code we worked on provides a useful component of some project or projects but A) It doesn't represent intellectual property that's core to our business itself and B) If we don't contribute the changes back to the community, we incur substantial additional costs of merging and maintaining our own separate code base for our version of the product." Point B is most likely of interest to your manager, and Point A is most likely of interest to whoever is responsible for legal things in the company (this will depend greatly on the nature and size of the company).

    3. Re:Well by egeorge · · Score: 1
      Actually, this is exactly where I am. I am fully aware of the fact that all of this code that I have written belongs to the company and that I need their approval before submitting anything back to the OSS projects. My issue has more to do with what kind of process I should recomend to the company for keeping track of what IP goes where.

      I was really hoping that someone else has actually been in this situation before, and had some insights about what process/documentation works and what doesn't.

    4. Re:Well by Sabalon · · Score: 1

      In addition, you should probably also show that buy using this GPL'd code, you saved $X from not having to buy something, and if it took you 10 minutes to make the change, then it is a savings for the company, plus if they let you release it back to the community, it is good for the company's name.

      Though I'm sure the legal department would have a whole list of hypothetical problems that could arise.

    5. Re:Well by zenyu · · Score: 1

      Ultimately, anything you've done on company time is owned by the company, and you have no rights to it whatsoever, NDA or no.

      That so depends on your employer, if it's the US government everything you write is in the public domain. If you work for a university they often claim just your patents and leave copyrights in your hands, sometimes even patents are yours if you pay the fees. You really have to read company policy here, usually it's more restrictive if software/patents are a large part of their mission. Then they usually make a claim to your work done outside working hours, sometimes limited to something related to what your working on there. SGI had me list everything I wanted excepted on my employment contract (I'm not there now).

      I've never had a problem getting permission to donate back to a project even when the contract said everything was theirs, you basically explain how much time it will save you merging your changes back into the code... If it's LGPL/GPL you remind them they need to publish the changes when they release the product anyway. You can also explain the benefits of making friendly with the lead developers, though business types seem to understand this with you pointing it out. The worst problem I've had was convincing someone it was a little tacky to release a "Partnership with project X" press release when a patch got accepted.

    6. Re:Well by Ben+Hutchings · · Score: 1

      These are roughly the arguments I would use, and have used successfully at my current job and a previous one in regard to the Boehm garbage collector. Thankfully I have had clueful managers that already understand the benefits of open source, so not much argument was needed.

  18. This question... by jmu1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    gets asked a lot around here. And the answer is always the same: Talk to your legal department. There isn't anything else you can do.

    1. Re:This question... by devphil · · Score: 1


      Here's the other answer that's always the same: what has been done before?

      For example, the instructions for copyright assignment for major contributions to libstdc++ spend much of the page discussing the "if you're employed as a programmer, here's what your employer needs to sign" situation. Look it over.

      --
      You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
  19. Come up with a patch list by DeRobeHer · · Score: 4, Informative

    When we're modifying open source programs for use in our environment, we try to come up with two different types of patches; patches that enhance the package wether they be with new features or bug fixes, and patches that are only there to support local conventions and tools. We rarely submit the local patches back to the development team of the package, but if we feel that the enhancement types of patches will help out the project, we'll submit them back.

    --
    Donald Roeber
    Generating 2048 Bits of Randomness...
  20. Re:Simply put: I DO by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

    Because it isn't your job.

    If there is a bug in the software you submit it to the author and work around it [or find another package].

    The only two exceptions are

    a. The bug is a single line typo of sorts that would only take a split second to fix

    b. The software is mission critical and you'd go belly up without it.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  21. Re:Simply put: I DO by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because you are doing it on their time, not your own.

  22. terms of employment agreements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    the company i work for has a term of employment agreement that i had to sign upon hire. it specifies that the employee is forbidden (except by written arrangement) from participating in activities that conflict or compete with the company's business. Example would be contributing to open source software that competes with your company's product.

    these kinds of agreements is probably common practice.

    if in doubt, you can ask for permission. if you aren't granted permission, then you have a decision to make.

  23. My Two Cents by xanadu-xtroot.com · · Score: 1

    "I would like to suggest a policy to my superiors, and could use a few good suggestions."

    You do this: YOU DON'T!

    You're sitting in your cube hammering out some code for whatever company project you're working on and suddenly you realize that the code you just slapped together would be perfect to help [insert OS app here].

    What do you do?

    Do you take the (now) IP of a company project and give it to GNU and do it over the company wire? Do you do the (technically) "Right Thing" and not contribute that code at all? Do you mix the two and think of another way way to code the exact some thought, just in a different way (on the company's bill)?

    I can't answer that. This is now a moral decision. Not an economic or even IP one. It is *YOU* that has to decide if any of the above (or ones I've missed) are "right" or not.

    [/SOAPBOX Src="two_cents"]

    --
    I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
    I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
  24. on your company's computer? by brlewis · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to title 17, an employer owns the copyright to "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment." I don't know the case law myself, but I wouldn't expect this to be measured by whether you're using the company's computer, any more than I'd expect they would hold copyright to all phone conversations made on company phones.

    1. Re:on your company's computer? by shakah · · Score: 2, Insightful
      ..., but I wouldn't expect this to be measured by whether you're using the company's computer, ...
      It certainly would be a major factor if and when a company tried to assert copyright ownership to software created by an employee, along with things like whether the software in question was developed during business hours.
    2. Re:on your company's computer? by EvanED · · Score: 1

      There are some contracts that broaden the IP that is passed to your company.

      (Also, phone conversations are, AFAIK, not copyrightable.)

    3. Re:on your company's computer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many contracts include all of your time as part of the scope of your employment. This is a natural extension of "salaried people don't get overtime". Whether your contract claims all of your IP or not is actually irrelevant to this argument, though. Most (if not all) organizations prohibit the use of company resources (including computer time) for personal purposes. Work done on the company computer that does not belong to the company can (and often will) get you fired.

    4. Re:on your company's computer? by The_K4 · · Score: 1

      The other big factor: Did you use any company software to make it (Like was it a company owner compiler, or a company owned debugger).

    5. Re:on your company's computer? by shakah · · Score: 1
      That's a very good point.

      See the following for a discussion of "shop rights" and how it relates to "work for hire":

      OWNERSHIP, SHOP RIGHTS AND THE WORK FOR HIRE DOCTRINE

      An excerpt:

      An inventor, who is an employee of someone else, makes an invention as an employee on the employerâ(TM)s time, and perhaps uses some of the materials that are supplied to him or her by the employer. Now that raises, in most legal systems and in the United States, the possibility that the law will imply certain rights in the patent to the employer. In the United States, we have developed over time the law with respect to shop rightsâ"which could be based on estoppel theories, could be based on implied contract theoriesâ"for deciding when we will give, as a matter of law, a royalty-free license to the employer.
  25. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Ngwenya · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I'm a consultant, paid for my time and the IP I develop. I would not dare to risk cross-contamination by doing anything more than downloading and using open-source packages at the office.

    Clearly that is your right - but I would venture that you are losing (or at least lowering) one of the essential values of Open Source: the ability to lower support, development and maintenance costs by having them amortized amongst the various businesses that to whom you might consult.

    Moreover, I have yet to see a reputation tarnished by having contributions accepted to high calibre projects in a peer-reviewed manner.

    When you mention cross-contamination, do you mean that you fear that you might put a client's IP into software which you subsequently release? Surely your client would have the right to refuse publication rights for the code (since the IP wasn't yours to give away)? Speaking flippantly, is it that you figure Open Source stuff would get you found out more quickly than a release of closed source kit? :-)

    --Ng

  26. simple thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do Not develop open source software at work. Do not open your mouth and keep your ideas to yourself. If you get found out, most companies would steal "your" ideas. If you had a brain, you would have read and kept copies of anything you signed when going to work for your pesent company.
    See a lawyer. Spend the money on the free consultation! Mingey Manga.

  27. Put it into the terms of the contract... by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 2, Informative

    The work I do is mostly funded by NASA, under scientific grants. Every grant proposal I submit contains the words "All software and intermediate data products will be freely released to the general public" (or minor variations on that sentence). That way I'm actually required to release stuff, and the most restrictive license I can put on it is something like GPL (public domain would also work, of course). Haven't had any problems with management over it.

    1. Re:Put it into the terms of the contract... by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      the most restrictive license I can put on it is something like GPL

      No you can't. GPL is based on copyright laws and as an employee of the US Government none of your works for it are eligible for copyright protection.

      The same is not necessarily true for 3rd parties or sub-contractors working for the US Government, but that depends on the contract.

      Public domain isn't a license... it's a state. Something is either copyrighted (in which case you can have a license) or public domain (in which case you can't, and you can do whatever the hell you want with it).

      Actually, that brings up a good question -- can someone working for the government do work on GPL code while at work? And submit it back? I suspect the answer is yes, since the copyright isn't owned by the USGvmt (which is what's illegal), but I'm not positive. Probably just overthinking it.

    2. Re:Put it into the terms of the contract... by jmcnamera · · Score: 1

      Not attempting a flame war over GPL, this is a general question about public funded software dev.

      I wonder, if the work funded by NASA must be released to the public, can it be released under GPL (or any other license) which adds its own restrictions?

      In other words, should it instead be released with no restrictive license at all instead of one that prevents some uses or business models?

      --
      this is not a sig
    3. Re:Put it into the terms of the contract... by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 1
      Actually, I'm not an employee of the U.S. Government, I'm an employee of Southwest Research Institute. What we do is produce scientific results under contract to NASA (and elsewhere). The actual results that we produce are (I believe, but IANAL) required to be in the public domain, but the software tools and intermediate data products are certainly not: in fact, much of NASA's scientific work is done using proprietary, closed-source software, something I'm actively combating within my community.

      So, the intermediate products and tools that I use are in general copyrighted, and I do what I can to ensure that they are licensed universally under GPL, Perl Artistic, or other approved open source licenses.

      Needless to say, the contributions I make to open-source projects (like, say, PDL) count as tools and/or intermediate data products and hence are released back into the community from whence they came.

      If you are in a position to negotiate contracts of this sort (ie to get a particular result) I encourage you to write-in that the tools will be released under a free software license, or into the public domain -- that way you can give back to the software community that helps support you.

    4. Re:Put it into the terms of the contract... by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      Ah, okay, then you fall into the sub-contractor bit I mentioned... cool :)

      Funny thing is, I just say some Modern Marvels show on bulletproofing that had a good bit of footage from SWRI. Looks like an interesting place to work.

      And good for you fighting the good fight -- I'm not a zealot, and fully understand the value and need for proprietary code, but having gotten a lot of benefit from OSS, I'm all for contributing back to it when possible.

    5. Re:Put it into the terms of the contract... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If something is in the public domain, you can pick it up, put a GPL license on it and start making changes to it in the public community. The modified program is most certainly copyrighted by everyone who makes changes to it.

  28. Forgiveness easier to get than permission? by Saucepan · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From past experience I've found that asking upper management for permission to contribute code results in them hemming and hawing, thinking about it for six months, and eventually just saying "No" when pressured for an answer.

    This makes sense when you think about it from their risk-averse perspective: releasing even small pieces of otherwise-useless specialized code is all downside and no upside.

    On the plus side you might might improve goodwill with a small number of open source developers. But on the minus side you might be exposing the company to liability, accidentally revealing sensitive information, or inadvertantly helping your competitors. Plus, management always has to worry about shareholders second-guessing them -- possibly resulting in a shareholder lawsuit -- if the IP you give away is later perceived to have been very valuable.

    Given all this, a dangerous but more pragmatic idea might be to just go ahead and contribute at least the small stuff like your patches and bugfixes. As long as you have no official policy forbidding this you can point out that it's just the standard way things are done when working with open source tools.

    Let me be clear that I am not actually advising anyone to do this. More just.. thinking aloud.

    1. Re:Forgiveness easier to get than permission? by dbavirt · · Score: 1
      As long as you have no official policy forbidding this you can point out that it's just the standard way things are done when working with open source tools.

      Sounds like a good way to induce some anti-open-source policy into existance.

      Not that I completely disagree with you, I just don't generally have a lot of faith in most management people, as they tend to be of the CYA sort.

    2. Re:Forgiveness easier to get than permission? by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      This makes sense when you think about it from their risk-averse perspective: releasing even small pieces of otherwise-useless specialized code is all downside and no upside.

      But that's not entirely true... there is a distinct downside, although whether or not you want to bring it up is up to you.

      If you don't release the changes back then you must make sure that any GPL or LGPL code you use (or similarly licensed code) is never, ever distributed to an outside party. That places a potentially immense risk on your codebase, since violation could mean forfeiture of all of your copyrights to the code (at least in the case of GPL). At the very least it would mean replacing all of those bits with code written entirely by your company, or purchased from another company and then integrated -- both of which are huge time sucks.

      Of course, the risk of pleading this case is that they'll simply say not to use any GPL/LGPL code at all. To which you can only argue time and cost... and I know that without libraries like Boost, OTL, libxml, PCRE, and libcurl we'd be writing a shitload more code, taking far more time, and have a far less stable product.

      And that's not even counting things like gcc, automake, gmake, vim, cvs, and other tools we use to actually create and maintain code! (No... no gdb... it seriously dislikes AIX 4.3 and C++)

    3. Re:Forgiveness easier to get than permission? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely DON'T do that without permission. If at some point in the future they want to get rid of you for a reason which by itself doesn't give them the right to fire you, these things are going to come back and haunt you. If releasing the modifications is good for the company, convince them and get permission, if it's not good for the company, then don't release it (or if you feel altruistic, try to get permission anyway).

    4. Re:Forgiveness easier to get than permission? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From past experience I've found that asking upper management for permission to contribute code results in them hemming and hawing, thinking about it for six months, and eventually just saying "No" when pressured for an answer.

      From past experience I've found that asking upper management for anything results in them hemming and hawing, thinking about it for six months, and eventually simpering out, crawling under their desks to cover their pink asses and turning into whiny little pussies.

      Oh, I'm being redundant. Sorry.

  29. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  30. Lawyers by truthsearch · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Considering it's a software company, hire a lawyer. Developers alone should not be making these decisions where a company's fate is at stake. Hire a law firm who specializes in software and/or copyright, go over everything with them, and then make up policy. It's not smart to not consult a lawyer in this case.

    --
    Developers: We can use your help.
  31. What! by PS-SCUD · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'd never do something so dishonest as to develop OSS on company time. I just look at pr0n and DL some music on Kazaa ;-)

    --


    "Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
    1. Re:What! by jdh-22 · · Score: 1

      At a company that I used to work at, an guy got in trouble for downloading porn. So, a couple months after they caught him, one of my co-workers said that he saw him doing it again. So our superviser at lunch time went and took a look at his computer. There was a couple megs of videos on there. When we opened one of the drawers, there was 823 cds filled with porn. Thats over 534.95 gigs of porn!!!

      He was fired on the spot.

      --
      Every Super Villan uses Linux.
    2. Re:What! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was he allowed to take the CDs?

    3. Re:What! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I'd never do something so dishonest as to develop OSS on company time"

      Why even consider it, when you get so much extra contracting work by doing things the hard way?

      We've just spent a year writing graphics software for proprietry hardware we're probably going to ditch and do the same again with a different proprietry bit of software. If we'd used OpenSceneGraph (LGPL) we could have been finished 6 months ago.

    4. Re:What! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dont forget about reading slashdot all day.

  32. Suitable precautions. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 1

    Empirical evidence suggests that, if a safe way to release work-produced code exists at all, it's to get an ironclad release statement written in blood and signed by the CEO and the company's legal department.

    In short, I wouldn't try it. Convince management to do it, and make sure there's a paper trail.

    1. Re:Suitable precautions. by egeorge · · Score: 1
      Convince management to do it, and make sure there's a paper trail.

      This is where I am right now. I am trying to suggest a process to management so that I can have some documented approval before releasing any code. Ultimately, I don't want to be making these decisions about what should our shouldn't be released.

  33. Government Copyrights in Canada by IncohereD · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lucky bastard....Her Majesty the Queen of England of all people holds the copyrights on MY code. :)

    1. Re:Government Copyrights in Canada by GoofyBoy · · Score: 3, Funny


      But in exchange, you get full rights and privliages as a loyal British citizen!

      --
      The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
    2. Re:Government Copyrights in Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But in exchange, you get full rights and privliages as a loyal British citizen!

      Isn't that technically "British subject?"

    3. Re:Government Copyrights in Canada by brer_rabbit · · Score: 2, Funny
      Geez, I could understand your Copyrights belonging to PARLIMENT, but the Queen!!!!!!

      I suggest everyone Give Up The Funk to Parliament. Your code would rest easier with George Clinton anyway.

      Free Your Code and Your Ass Will Follow!

    4. Re:Government Copyrights in Canada by plam · · Score: 2, Informative
      Actually, Her Majesty the Queen of Canada holds copyright on stuff created by Canadian government employees. Canadians are not British citizens or subjects anymore; the current Citizenship Act defines Canadian citizenship as something distinct.



      When I submitted my Master's thesis, I had to give the Queen in right of the National Librarian the non-exclusive right to reproduce that thesis.

    5. Re:Government Copyrights in Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      But in exchange, you get full rights and privliages as a loyal British citizen!

      Rights that are eroding away daily all for the illusion of safety.

  34. Re:My thoughts? by confused+one · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    It deserves a flame...

    Bill F*?$*^& Gates isn't a great programmer. He's an evil business genius who knows how to take other peoples work, re-package it, and sell it to the unsuspecting masses.

    I don't know whether to hate him or respect him for it...

    AAAHhhhh the pain!!! Must Hate! Must!

  35. A cautionary tale by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm posting AC for my own safety. I made changes to an open source package for my employer. Since the changes were for an internal package (we didn't release binaries to the public) I was told by my boss that submitting the changes to the package maintainer would be a violation of my NDA. I discovered after I left the company that my changes were eventually submitted to the package maintainer, and that my boss had taken credit for them.

    The moral of the story: get the company policies in writing before you start making changes to an open source package.

    1. Re:A cautionary tale by confused+one · · Score: 1
      And, unless your boss was the owner, he violated the NDA himself.

      If your feeling vindictive, you can bring it up with the management at your former company and get him fired...

    2. Re:A cautionary tale by jgerman · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, the company is well withing it's rights to do that. Though, assuming your NDA doesn't prohibit it, and I'll bet it doesn't, you should be legally allowed to tell the maintainer that the person taking credit is not the person who actually wrote it. It wouldn't accomplish anything though.

      --
      I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
    3. Re:A cautionary tale by clonebarkins · · Score: 1
      I discovered after I left the company that my changes were eventually submitted to the package maintainer, and that my boss had taken credit for them.

      I'm trying to figure out -- are you pissed about this or happy? It sounds like you're pissed, but perhaps you should be happy that at least the code got back to where it "belongs"! I know, it sucks that your boss screwed you like that, but the GPL is based on "for the good of mankind" theories, and it seems like ultimately this limelight-stealing bastard did something good (though his motives were probably selfish).

      Kinda makes for an ethical paradox, eh?

      --

      "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand

    4. Re:A cautionary tale by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      _Or_, perhaps the employer realized that you had exposed company secrets and decided to make the best of it by claiming a contribution. If I understand the facts of the case correctly, you _stole_ his IP and then attempted to get credit for its creation.

      In the cases I've contributed stuff to OSS, I've made sure the employer is happy to contribute the changes, since it is usually his code by virtue of having paid my mortgage, food , and entertainment while I was writing the code. Seldom, but not never, was I not allowed to publish the code.

  36. The poster was being funny, by Jammer@CMH · · Score: 1

    but the moderators missed the humor. (The joke relates to the whole SCO / Linux IP lawsuit thing. You see...nevermind.)

    1. Re:The poster was being funny, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hahahha
      Jokes.... I get jokes.....

    2. Re:The poster was being funny, by confused+one · · Score: 1
      Ahhhh,

      I get it now... Too tired from actually working...

    3. Re:The poster was being funny, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See if this confuses you even more:

      Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

      A: To get to the other side!!!!

  37. When I worked at Wise Foods Inc... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They had me sign a contract that anything I developed while working there, no matter if it was related to the job or not, because their IP. If you signed a similar contract, then they technically own anything you code. You'll definately need their permission in order to release anything.

    J

  38. FCC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just grow some balls, or you're gonna see some
    new government agency that pre-empts any future
    discussion of these issues.

    If you are a good coder your bosses will bite
    their lips and back off. And if they don't, well,
    they don't deserve to be bosses, right?

    I went through this 5 years ago and I walked out
    when they beefed... right into a new job at nearly
    three times the pay, and with an up front
    agreement that if I met expectations I could fling
    code to the masses.

    Works out fine.

    Stop acting like a victim, you're a coder.

  39. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the ability to lower support, development and maintenance costs by having them amortized amongst the various businesses that to whom you might consult.

    No, you would not amortizing them. Look up accounting definitions before blindly posting. You would be passing on all support costs to the one employer who you are billing in the time it takes you to fix the shoddy OSS code.

  40. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    but if what your doing is only helping you to perform your job better, what's wrong with that?

  41. Do the Right Thing by hobbs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Of course, defining the Right Thing will in the end be up to your managers, but influencing their opinion is important.

    First off, do they realize what value they are already getting from open source, or was that snuck in the door? The former would make life easier (for everyone, since more PHBs will realize the value of OSS).

    One thing you don't want to do is to sneak behind your boss' backs and contribute what is unarguably company IP back to OSS without their permission. This can cause headaches down the road that could have been avoided.

    Setting criteria for contributing back to OSS that you are enhancing is much easier than releasing OSS in the first place (IMO), and, yes, I have worked for enlightened companies that blended both well. It all depends on what your company does (industry focus) and where it values its IP. Generally though, if you have just enhanced OSS, returning those enhancements should be a no-brainer (and required by some OSS licenses). Again, that is really a no-brainer only if management knew you were using OSS in the first place.

    For major enhancements, try to value it from your company perspective. If you were (eg) a video codec software company and had just made changes to a BSD video codec that gets 10x compression improvement with no quality loss, is it really worth your while to release that back immediately? I know some will argue that all software must be free, but how many of them are gainfully employed based solely on the free software that they develop (read: I don't think the model for just selling support sustains itself). IOW this isn't intended to start religious wars, just to make you think about what IP really has value to your company, and what you should be more readily willing to share.

    Completely new software that you might want to release under and OSS license is similar to the above. First off, if you company isn't OSS aware, make them. Then discuss what things you don't want to release for core IP reasons, and what is good to release.

    Remember that just releasing code doesn't raise the jollies of most corporate types. It usually has to have a purpose, and company brand awareness is a large part of that. Making or enhancing OSS software can be very good guerilla marketing for a company. It's perhaps not the same as dot.bomb hype levels, but it still has value for brand awareness, recruiting, etc.

    1. Re:Do the Right Thing by wfrp01 · · Score: 1

      do they realize what value they are already getting from open source

      I think that's the ticket right there. Point out that the value your company recieves from free software far exceeds the value of what you are proposing to give back. And one of the primary reasons that your company recieves the benefits it does from free software is that other people do exactly as you are proposing.

      Why do people spend time answering questions on usenet without getting paid? For various reasons, I'm sure. But one of them is that they get more back than they put in. The public commons just works that way.

      You're not proposing that you spend all day doing this. Here and there, you find reasons to spruce up this or that package, and you'd like to contribute those improvements back to the community which gave you the package in the first place. It's an eminently sensible idea; and if your bosses don't see that, perhaps you should consider working someplace with more enlightened management.

      --

      --Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
  42. Re:Simply put: I DO by Ngwenya · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Well, sometimes I will be working with a OSS software package and I see a way to make a little change to make it better, or fix a bug. Why should any employer/client worry about that?

    Vicarious liability, for one reason. Your employer (in most jurisdictions) is at least partly responsible for your actions whilst you are in their employ, and on their time. It hardly seems fair for them to be expected to assume liability without having the capacity to mitigate it, does it?

    And all the disclaimers in the world won't help you if a case can be made for malicious code being deliberately released - your company would still be accountable.

    --Ng

  43. Explicit notice and approval procedures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Explicit notice and approval should be required in working on the source code of open source projects. This shouldn't be too surprising, as explicit approval is usually required for most major time expenditures.

    Working on open source projects requires tracking for several reasons: people forget what is open source, people forget that they (may) need to distribute changes or source code if they distribute the open source software, and they need to be clear what is a company asset and what is not.


    The usual tool for this is to have a form and to designate one engineer and one lawyer to approve and track open source software that is modified. You should recommend creating a form with the usual questions and a naming scheme to designate directories as containing open source software.

    What is name of this software?

    Is this software's source code expected to modified or used elsewhere? [Most usage is just usage]

    Is this software or any software derived from it expected to be distributed outside the company? Explain.

    What is the license for this software? Does it require source distribution? When does it require changes to be distributed? Explain.

    Do you forsee doing anything remotely tricky in the interpretation of the license so that we can use it? Explain.

    Do you forsee incorporating any existing code from our company or code that would be useful in other projects? Explain.

    And yes, require explicit approval from a manager before working on opensource on company time. This is all just common sense.

  44. Re:Simply put: I DO by dreamchaser · · Score: 0

    Then it is job related and there should be no problem with it unless the company has policies against using OSS.

    That was not how the statement I replied to read though...

  45. It's simply a matter of paranoia and caution by Vengeance · · Score: 1

    It's part of my personality naturally, and when navigating the American legal system, it's an asset.

    Essentially the facts are as follows: I code for fun, and I code for money. When I'm coding for money, there are expectations, and those expectations include copyrighting the code. When I code for fun, Eclipse generates GPL templates automagically for every source module I create.

    More than one fellow has tried to engage me in business ventures during work hours, but I'm always careful to defer all such discussions to a time and place where I can truly consider myself free.

    No entanglements, low risk.

    --
    It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
    1. Re:It's simply a matter of paranoia and caution by sharekk · · Score: 4, Informative

      This only works so well though. Many companies have small print that they basically own your brain while you work for them. Even IBM, which pays people to work on open source code has some paperwork for you if you want to work on your own projects. I believe it's fairly straightforward as long as you're not making money off something that looks a lot like your job but you Do have to fill it out. It does make sense from the company's perspective - they don't want to pay you to work on some propriatary code and then have you go home and use the expertise they paid you to gain to apply the same features to a free product that's their competition. Sadly I don't know the actual process one has to go through so I can't be of any help to whoever asked this.

  46. Get it in writing! by tundog · · Score: 4, Informative

    We want to make sure we get clarification about what is or is not covered by our NDAs

    IANAL but here goes...

    This one is kind of obvious to me, but an NDA is an Agreement between two or more companies that basically says 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' and legally binds each party not to tell anyone else about it. I try to avoid these because I'm always paranoid that the other company will tell me something I'm already working on and later try to stake a claim on what's mine.

    Simple answer to your question: Before you send ANY code into the public domain get your boss to sign off on EXACTLY what you are releasing. Otherwise, even if you get the OK you could be in hot water later if your boss backs out on you.

    --
    All your base are belong to us!
    1. Re:Get it in writing! by egeorge · · Score: 1
      ...get your boss to sign off on EXACTLY what you are releasing.

      This is what I am doing. I am going to propose a process to get approval before anything gets submitted. I was interested to hear if anyone had ever set up this kind of process before and what kinds of things work or don't work.

  47. Merging by EnglishTim · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would have thought the best approach is to suggest that you submit the patches so that you won't have to go through the pain of merging your changes in every time you want to get a new version of the software. If you phrase it as something that will help your productivity, I'd have thought they'd be much more likely to agree.

    1. Re:Merging by egeorge · · Score: 1
      This is an excellent point and a major rationale in my argument that we should submit. We are committed to using this product as well as our changes already. The creators will release new versions and we expect to upgrade as they are released.

      Since I am the poor schmuck that has to maintain our modifications, I would much rather be working with the OSS team on the mods instead of playing catch up.

  48. Don't RANSACK THE COMMONS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Gates has already done that.

    If you and/or your company are using OpenSource/GPL software in a beneficial way and you make improvements to the GPL code it would be in your/your companys interest to release your improvements to the community. After all, if you grazed your cattle on the commons would you sell the fertilizer back to the community that gave you free grazing priviliges or would you leave it on the commons to fertilize the grass so other cattle have grass to graze? Gates would collect it as "IP" and cash in, but are you that kind of person? Is your company that kind of company? (Selfish and Greedy)

    In other words, if everyone took and took and took, but no one returned, GPL software would be less significant than it is today. So, leave your 'propriatary IP' attitude behind or stop using GPL software. If you want to sell your "IP" don't use GPL code in it.

    Freely you recieved, freely give.

  49. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Vengeance · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's not that I am charging for my IP. It's that the terms of my contractual agreement dictate ownership of work I create during my paid business hours.

    I personally do not have a moral or ethical quandary with opening up my development process, busting a hole in the firewall to allow CVS or at least SSH access, and making wholesale changes to open source projects on company time. I just don't want to be the subject of a 'Your Rights Online' story here.

    --
    It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
  50. LGPL by macrealist · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, part of M$'s rants about open source software is true. Unless a company is willing to contribute, using GPL type of licenced source is a parasite. The LGPL provides a happy medium. And contrary to GNU's belief (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html), it does provide a way for companies to get their toes wet in the Open Source world.

    --
    I am living proof of the Peter Principle
    1. Re:LGPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      using GPL type of licenced source is a parasite

      Well, if you don't like it, don't use it. The GPL isn't parasitic, it stops parasites. If you take, you have to give back (and that isn't even required in case you just use the modified GPL program yourself).

    2. Re:LGPL by macrealist · · Score: 1

      I think you missed the point. If you include a GPL library or subroutine in a program you are writting, now what?

      If you are just using that for yourself, no problem. But what if that program is for a customer? Because of the GPL licence on the one unmodified routine, the whole program would need to be GPL'd. Although many advocate that, it is not a business model most companies that write and sell programs to others would agree to.

      The point is, if you are going to get your company to allow you to contribute code back to the community, how do you approach it?

      1) prove it is not parasitic
      2) provide a model that is agreeable to the company and the community

      LGPL licences allow use and release of specific portions. A meeting place for GNU zealots and big business.

      --
      I am living proof of the Peter Principle
    3. Re:LGPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you missed the point: GPL software comes at a price. The price is that you can't be a parasite. If you don't want to pay the price (in other words: if you don't want to be symbiotic instead of parasitic), then stay away from GPL software. Some companies prefer to leech, but that is their fault, not the GPL's.

    4. Re:LGPL by macrealist · · Score: 1

      "GPL software comes at a price", and I am willing to bet that price is too high for most companies that design software.

      Yet the companies that design software are the ones that are most desirable to get into the open source fold. So how do you do that? By NOT advocating the GPL.

      For example, your company makes a kick ass game. You want to use a routine to save files in an XML format, and that routine is GPL. IF you use it, then the whole game becomes GPL. What company in their right mind would use that routine?

      On the other hand, if the routine were LGPL, the company could use and benefit from it, and then maybe a real nice routine that the company has developed that reads XML format will be released with a similar licence. In this way there is a symbiotic realationship.

      This requires that a company be a good open source citizen, but that is a far easier battle to win than the GPL zealotry battle.

      --
      I am living proof of the Peter Principle
    5. Re:LGPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're entitled to your own opinion. I'd say that the obviously inappropriate parasite comparison is a stronger sign of zealotry, but that's just my opinion. There's no reason to use the LGPL instead of the GPL for any program which isn't specifically designed to be part of another program. And even if we're looking at a library, the author may value the deterrence of leeches higher than a large userbase.

    6. Re:LGPL by Chelloveck · · Score: 1
      On the other hand, if the routine were LGPL, the company could use and benefit from it, [...]

      Probably not, if you're statically linking in the LGPL code. Section (6) of the LGPL states that if you statically link an LGPL work you must provide your own "work that uses the Library" in source or object form, such that the end-user could modify the LGPL code and re-link with your application.

      On top of that, you must also include any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the executable. Thus, any makefiles or custom shell scripts must be provided along with your object code.

      Even if this isn't going to give advantage to your competitors, it's a major pain in the ass for you. You now have a bunch of extra deliverables (the LGPL source, your objects, your makefiles and custom tools) that you have to give your customer. You also have to test this package, to be sure that they can modify the LGPL code and re-link properly.

      You don't have all these hassles if you're dynamically linking, but that's not always an option. Embedded systems are almost always statically linked, for example.

      Sorry. It's way too much to go through unless you're going to make your own code open source as well. But then, that's the whole point of the FSF, isn't it? Y'know, for a group claiming to promote "free as in freedom", they certainly place a lot of restrictions on you...

      --
      Chelloveck
      I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
  51. We've done it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We've released all the HTML on our web site for the Open Source developer community. They can now leverage off our mouseover effects.

    OSS kicks ass!

  52. RTFL (Read the License) by Compulawyer · · Score: 1
    Read the license of the code you are modifying. Simply put, the modifications may not "belong" to your company. If the company accepted source code to modify and that source's availability was conditioned on the publication of modifications, then there is an obligation imposed by the license to release the modifications.

    Call this a self-serving statement by one of those fscking IP lawyers, but your company should consult with a lawyer who knows software licensing, knows source code issues, and can advise your company properly.

    --

    Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

    1. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by jgerman · · Score: 1

      and that source's availability was conditioned on the publication of modifications


      I don't think a situation like that is possible. It's unlikely, from a legal standpoint, that a license can be created to require that. And it would be exceptionally difficult to enforce.

      --
      I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
    2. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by Compulawyer · · Score: 1

      Of course such a license can be created. It is called the GPL. See sections 2 and 3 available here. Enforcement is easy - bring a copyright infringement action. Identification of infringers is harder, but not impossible.

      --

      Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

    3. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by jgerman · · Score: 1

      Uh, no. The GPL requires distribution. If you do not distribute you do not have to make the modified source available.

      --
      I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
    4. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by swordgeek · · Score: 1

      As someone else pointed out, the GPL requires you to release any code you modify and resdistribute. If they're using it in-house, they're probably fine.

      As for the enforcement, has there ever been a ruling that's directly related to the GPL? As far as I know, there's no legal precedent for the GPL to stand, and thus without a court case, there's no telling how valid it is.

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    5. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by Compulawyer · · Score: 1
      Uh, YES. See section 3 of the GPL. IF you take a GPLed program and modify that program and distribute that modified program, the GPL requires you to make the source code for the modifications available under the GPL. You said you didn't think such a license was possible and I gave an example of one that does such a thing.

      The original poster said: Some software is licensed to customers, some is run internally in a service model ...

      Licensing and running internally in a service model BOTH count as "distribution" under the GPL. It is very easy to create and enforce such licenses -- all you have to do it write the terms in the license and sue if you don't get the modified source from the licensee. If you don't like the GPL example, look at any one of the hundreds/thousands (if you can get your hands on a non-confidential copy) of licenses / agreements where independent contractors get access to source code to make modifications to programs provided they make the modified source code available. I believe the general term is a "code maintenance agreement."

      --

      Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

    6. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by Compulawyer · · Score: 1

      See my earlier post re: distribution. Also, as for court cases, I don't have time to try to find one but trust me, the GPL is enforceable and valid.

      --

      Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

    7. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by swordgeek · · Score: 1

      No offense, but why SHOULD I trust you? Even assuming that the name 'compulawyer' is indicative, the GPL still provides some fairly onerous and unlikely requirements on the licensee. Until I see a legally binding court ruling, I'm rather disinclined to believe that it carries more weight than a gentleman's agreement.

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    8. Re:RTFL (Read the License) by Compulawyer · · Score: 1
      None taken. You should be skeptical. Let me just say that I went to a Top 20 law school, graduated at the top of my class, am admitted to practice in 3 jurisdictions (including the USPTO), and practice IP law in one of the largest (and the best) law firm in the world. Trust me or not, it remains my legal opinion that the GPL is valid and enforceable.

      Any license is just a contract. There are literally millions of contracts that are fully performed and never litigated every day. You don't need a court opinion on any of those contracts to trust they are enforceable. You just trust that the terms are within the bounds of the law. I am of the opinion that the GPL's terms are within the bounds of the law as well.

      --

      Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

  53. Not a troll, he's right? by TrollBridge · · Score: 0

    I suppose he could have put it a little more politely, but really, do people need to ask if it's OK to work on personal projects while on company time?

    --
    There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
    1. Re:Not a troll, he's right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why bother putting it more politely? The thread question is along the same vein as "hey can you crak my code????/ its this: 320983jkkjkskDFK(99898df" (incorrect "it's" usage intentional) and the bane of my existance, "what lvl r u" with no question mark. I'm all for using the internet as a forum where _everybody_ can communicate, but there's no reason why everyone has to pussyfoot around stupid questions.

  54. What about this by vrassoc · · Score: 1

    You could rewrite the stuff a second time on your own time and then submit it in your private capacity. It usually turns out better the second time around anyway.

    Of course this leads to the old developers' dilemma of when does company time stop and private time start because developers are notorious for coding stuff that ends up getting used by their company in their own time because it's fun.

    Seriously though, let your bosses decide. It's their code and they might surprise you and feel some sort of gratitude towards the OS community for the resources that it's gained from there. It sounds like your company makes quite a bit of use of OS software and in a moment of weakness the powers that be might just be soft hearted enough to give something back to a movement that has advanced their business. It will be their call though.

  55. Repost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    It seems you've posted this article (from 1998, not 1999) a few times already.

    Do you work for Microsoft?

    1. Re:Repost by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      No, I do not. I simply post it where it is RELEVANT. This is extremely relevant to the topic.

  56. We use it...we change it...we give back :) by GweeDo · · Score: 1

    I work for a web hosting company (www.hagenhosting.com) and we use basically all open source software to manage our systems. We recently started using an open source web mail client that works very well with our mail setup and in the process have made many changes to it (though I am still not done with all my changes). Once I get all the changes done and am happy with the quality of the code I changed I will be returning the code back to the original author. This is the first time that we have modified open source software that we use, but my boss was all about giving the changes back.

    --
    Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
  57. Can't you just use by vasqzr · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Can't you just use a psuedonym? I mentioned this in another post.

    If the patch or software is released by "Thor the C Coder", who's the wiser?

    1. Re:Can't you just use by RatBastard · · Score: 1

      And if someone else in your company finds the company's code in the source and they just happen to know that you were working on that project? What then? Is it worth losing your job over?

      THINK! There's three pounds of brains in your skull. Use them! You get fired for distributing company IP without permission and you might find it damned hard to find another programming job in these less than glorious economic times. And remember that any work you do on company time and/or company systems can legally be claimed by your employer.

      --
      Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
    2. Re:Can't you just use by clonebarkins · · Score: 1
      And if someone else in your company finds the company's code in the source and they just happen to know that you were working on that project? What then? Is it worth losing your job over?

      Obfuscation, my man, obfuscation.

      --

      "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand

    3. Re:Can't you just use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried that on this contract I had in Santa Cruz. I think they're finally on to me.

    4. Re:Can't you just use by Nucleon500 · · Score: 1
      I tried that on this contract I had in Santa Cruz. I think they're finally on to me.

      Hmm... Anonymous Coward == AC == Alan Cox. Suddenly it all makes sense!

      --
      Litigious bastards
  58. Some hints by kune · · Score: 1

    I'm not a legal expert, but I assume that all changes are made while you are working at the company. This means the copyright of the code belongs to the company. If you want to publish your patches, you need a formal decision by the company management for doing this. Notify that if you modify code under the GPL and distribute that code to a third party, you are required to publish it with the complete source. Please make sure, that every decision is documented and signed by the legal responsible persons. Keep hard copies of these documents.

  59. Re:Simply put: I DO by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Insightful
    And all the disclaimers in the world won't help you if a case can be made for malicious code being deliberately released - your company would still be accountable.

    Legally sound, but immoral and practically insane. The same argument could be made for preventing you from doing almost anything you don't have to do, regardless of how public spirited.

    And in particular, when in the history of this world, has "malicious code [been] deliberately released" as part of an OSS?

    The upside for the company is an increase of good will, which transates into sales.

  60. Advice from the HA-Linux list by Medievalist · · Score: 5, Informative

    Alan Robertson, who maintains the heartbeat package and works for IBM, recently posted to the ha-linux list on this subject.

    Alan does not accept patches to the heartbeat code that were developed on company time unless he receives a disclaimer from somebody at the company.

    This is obviously spoofable, but it's probably a good way to legally protect the code -- Alan can honestly say he received it in good faith, which keeps IBM's lawyers' from breathing down his neck. It's kind of weird for me, though, I have to send a disclaimer giving myself permission to send in a patch....

    So, to answer your question: explain to your CEO why helping the OSS community helps you to help your company, and get her/him to sign off on a policy that allows you to do so. Ask for legal authority to be delegated to yourself (or your boss) to license or assign corporate intellectual property to open-source projects. Then have HR propagate the policy to your co-workers.

    1. Re:Advice from the HA-Linux list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He probably adopted such a hard line precisely because the Linux-HA design was a direct ripoff of the HACMP/6000 design by an IBM field-service guy, and this fact was pointed out to them several times by the people who'd designed the original.

    2. Re:Advice from the HA-Linux list by egeorge · · Score: 1

      Excellent! Thank you very much. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for. I will include the disclaimer you linked to in my proposal to management as the kind of paperwork that we should be maintaining.

    3. Re:Advice from the HA-Linux list by Medievalist · · Score: 1

      My understanding is that Alan and the other key ha-linux developers were already quite familiar with most of the proprietary systems on the market when they created the original design. I don't know if you consider that "a direct rip-off" or if you are implying something more sinister, but since Alan works on ha-linux with the full support of IBM I doubt that any actual code theft took place.

  61. Use Channels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Try to get a company policy permitting it. To do so, discuss it with your boss. If your boss is a dunderhead, discuss it with colleagues at your level in other departments and see if you can get them to discuss it with their bosses. Sooner or later it should filter up to the top and pass through legal. Keep your fingers crossed.

  62. Re:Simply put: I DO by GoofyBoy · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Then you should have no problem in formally writing up to them what you plan to return to the Open Source project.

    Outline exactly what you intend to send the maintainer and why it benefits your job/the company.

    Just don't do it because you can't see why you shouldn't. Your boss might have a different opinion.

    --
    The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
  63. Creative Control. by temojen · · Score: 1

    Or have a contract that says you get the Intellectual Property, but your employer gets a perpetual, but non exclusive right to use, modify, and distribute it. I do. But of course, the software isn't what we're selling, we're selling what you can do with the software.

  64. Re:My thoughts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    confused_one....that is absolutely correct. YOU ARE CONFUSED. Bill Gates is a business genius, but by no means evil!

    Just because he can work the system, and you can't, don't be bitter. Just because he's the pinnacle of man, and you are nothing, don't be angry.

    Long Live The Architect.

    Also, how the above post could be a troll, I'll never know. I agree with it wholeheartedly.

  65. It makes your hair fall out. by Medievalist · · Score: 1

    Plus, it gives you piles, cirrohsis of the liver, bad breath, ring-around-the-collar, and worms.

    Stick with raw greed as your motivator. Greed makes you taller, cleaner, healthier and more sexually attractive!

    In the "unlimited greed" model, it doesn't matter if contributing to OSS makes your world better, because you must NEVER EVER EVER give anything away -- even if you don't need it, and can't profit from it -- because charity by definition is bad!

    SO, to be truly greedy, don't help OSS projects make better code that can make your company more profitable - hug your tiny, uninspired code changes to your fat little chest and WHINE!

    Remember, if greed is good then UNLIMITED GREED IS UNLIMITED GOODNESS FOR YOU!!!

    1. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      "Greed" has nothing to do with it. The question is who is getting the real value from Open Source? Not the ones producing it for sure. I am simply warning young programmers not to fall into the OSS trap. Don't work for free for the corporations. Don't devalue yourself.

    2. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by Medievalist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If your company does not produce software for sale, then using OSS and contributing to the OSS you use decreases costs and support burdens for your employer.

      Decreasing costs and support load is generally how I earn my bonuses. I reduced our corporate IT costs by over $600,000 per annum with OSS over the course of six years. With the promotions and correspondingly larger salary I recieve, I've been able to buy two new cars, a house, and build a gaming network in my basement. All from what you claim is "working for free".

      Your greed has blinded you to the enormous benefits of giving stuff away. To answer your question, who is getting the real value from Open Source? I reply: Everybody involved! Except greedy proprietary software vendors, of course. And they've never done anything for me that I didn't have to pay for, so I owe them nothing. I donate code and money to OSS, because it is to my benefit to do so.

    3. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      "Decreasing costs and support load is generally how I earn my bonuses. I reduced our corporate IT costs by over $600,000 per annum with OSS over the course of six years. With the promotions and correspondingly larger salary I recieve, I've been able to buy two new cars, a house, and build a gaming network in my basement. All from what you claim is "working for free"."

      YOU ARE PROVING MY POINT HERE. Who is making th emoney off of the OSS? The corporations, NOT THE PERSON MAKING THE SOFTWARE. I am glad you have two new card, a house, a gaming network. WHAT DOES THE OSS DEVELOPER GET? NOTHING.

      Listen up all you budding programmers, here is the CRUX of the problem with OSS.

    4. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by WaxParadigm · · Score: 1

      Uuh, I think you're missing the point here. Many people in IT are the ones contributing to OSS because it helps them do a better job. If you solve a problem using OSS you've done a better job at the developer's effort/expense. (And that OSS was probably originally made by someone who needed SW to do X - a need of theirs or their employer - and they were rewarded for making it work.)

      But them you're likely to see some way to improve on or build on the OSS, which you then implement, and give back to the community. Now you've developed something that helped you...and you've helped others by removing their need to make that incremental improvement.

      Now someone else gets to use your creation and improve on it and you get to reap the benefits., but improve on that OSS and hand it back to the community.

      Sure, there are leaches, but that's OK because the general outcome of this is that people who need to get things done for themselves or their employers can now get it done w/o writing the code from scratch or paying gobs of cash for it.

      All the people I work with in IT who fit the above (contribute to OSS) are the highest-paid and most-respected technical people in our IT organization. It's because they know how to get things done, these things get done w/o a bunch of license fees, and if things run pretty smoothly because them (and other people like them) are constantly using and improving the SW.

    5. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by cygonik · · Score: 1

      It does not matter who is making money off the os - the issue is that, no matter who makes money off of it, it is a shared resource that continues to grow, and, like a corporation, or a nation, the overall product is much larger than any given individual could do. It's worth creating, refining, and submitting code simply for the fact that that's how we got this OS and many other useful programs. The point is that the corporations are *free* to use the software as they wish, so long as it's within the constraints of the given OSS license. Likewise, we're free to benefit from the code that corporations, such as IBM and the many linux distribution companies, have shared with the community. And what various companies have shared amounts to thousands upon thousands upon thousands (and likely more) of lines of code. That makes those companies, whether they get money off of the product or not (which, by the way, isn't a crime -- money, unlike greed, isn't evil[*]), valid and very valuable members of the community.

      Aside from that, wouldn't it be just as foolishly greedy for some random programmer to hoard code (when hoarding doesn't actually benefit that programmer) as it would be for a company to?

      Also, if the programmer isn't making money off of open source, he could damn well join a corporation where he would.

      [*] - I don't actually think greed is evil. I think it's a rather natural way of progression and forward movement/motivation. However, I think it is, overall, less effective than the willingness to work together as a whole. Look at biology. After a certain amount of mucking about as single-cellular creatures, those organize, and grow to become a larger system, which both consumes and produces more.

      ~b~

      It seems to me that there are two votes we have in this economic state, and they are not political. They are where you work, and where you spend your money.

      --
      I am not an atomic playboy.
    6. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by WaxParadigm · · Score: 1

      Oh, yah, maybe I should state my point so you'll get what I'm getting at in the above post. You say the developer gets nothing...that's bullshit. In my example they get a lot - generally lots of money, employability/marketability, and respect.

      You asked "what does the developer get?" and presumed "nothing" - which is utterly false. They get to solve a need, help others do the same, and get paid very well to do so.

      I guess you're trying to support some "develop it and they will buy it" mentality of developing to develop. Sure, if you give away code that doesn't solve a problem you're getting paid to fix or something you need to solve for yourself anyway - then yah, you're getting nothing from OSS...but I really fail to understand why you're writing a program that doesn't benefit yourself or your employer.

      What, do you expect to get paid for the rest of your life to re-implement one piece of code? No, fix a problem, get paid, help others fix the problem and move on. Stop trying to suck as much cash as you can out of one positive thing you've done and get on to filling more needs.

    7. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      "What, do you expect to get paid for the rest of your life to re-implement one piece of code? No, fix a problem, get paid, help others fix the problem and move on. Stop trying to suck as much cash as you can out of one positive thing you've done and get on to filling more needs."

      First of all, poppycock. The developer isn't getting paid at all. He has effectively devalued himself/herself.

      I also have an issue with those people who say "why should you make money re-implementing? do it once, and then everyone shares in the results"

      This is bad because at any given time there are only X amount of customers. If I as a developer come in and provide a solution to a customer that also solves Y number of customers problems, then there are X-(1+Y) number of customers now left.

      I have now reduced the demand for my services and that is a very bad thing for me. In hard times it is good to have X amount of customers, not X-(1+Y). So what if I am reimplementing something? IT IS PUTTING FOOD ON MY TABLE. All of you out of work developers and new college grads should think about this.

    8. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by Medievalist · · Score: 1


      Apparently you haven't noticed that I AM the OSS developer. In a small way, certainly; I don't actually run any OSS projects.

      So, for the last time, I'll answer your question: Who is making th emoney off of the OSS? The answer is me.

      Linus Torvalds makes a pretty nice salary, too.

    9. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by tyllwin · · Score: 1

      Well, y'know that argument might hold some water if you limited it to software companies.

      But suppose I don't work for a software company? Say I work for a company that sells widgets. The software is just a tool to *my* company. I can get it for free, I can improve it where it doesn't meet my satisfaction, and I can give the improved version back to keep the cycle flowing.

      My compensation is that on balance I have to hire fewer internal developers, or free them up to to do things that really *must* be custom.

      If I sell widgets, and not software, I don't care how many fewer customers there are for a proprietary version of what I got from OSS. I don't sell that. Software is a cost center for me, not a profit center.

    10. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Doubtful you are an OSS developer. You are an IT person. You are a consumer of the free software, not a producer. Linus doesn't make his nice salary from OSS either. Even if he did, that is no comfort to all the lost development jobs caused by OSS.

    11. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by Bronster · · Score: 1

      YOU ARE PROVING MY POINT HERE. Who is making th emoney off of the OSS? The corporations, NOT THE PERSON MAKING THE SOFTWARE. I am glad you have two new card, a house, a gaming network. WHAT DOES THE OSS DEVELOPER GET? NOTHING.

      Just because you uploaded your very own blog script to Freshmeat last week, and nobody has offered you a gaming network and a couple of houses doesn't mean that people doing stuff that's actually valuable to their business shouldn't get paid for it.

      The basic test that I hope my boss still applies goes something like "Is it going to give our competitors any significant advantages to have access to this? 'No'. Is it likely to be useful to people and have additional benefits? 'Yes'. Release it then." - of course, I generally just send diffs to already existing tools that we use - because that's the whole points of releasing it in the first place.

    12. Re:It makes your hair fall out. by An+Onerous+Coward · · Score: 1

      Your reasoning sounds much like the "broken windows" theory of economic stimulus. It's the misguided idea that I can stimulate the economy by going around smashing windows, drumming up business for window repairmen.

      The flaw is, the money used to repair the windows isn't created from the aether. It's money that the window owner would have used to buy new equipment for a business, or spent on electronics.

      By the same reasoning, if a developer has to spend his time reinventing the wheel because all the other wheels are restricted, then the opportunity to spend that same time creating something new and innovative has been lost.

      If OSS can really deliver solutions more efficiently than proprietary methods (which you appear to be conceding), then there's really no use arguing in favor of the less efficient method, even if it does provide you job security. Buggy whips and whatnot.

      --

      You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

  66. I wouldn't do that if I were you... by Delphix · · Score: 1

    If you release anything without explicit consent from your company, you're going to be sued for copyright infringement and damages like no other.

    The do not "technically" own it. They own it. They're paying you to develop stuff for them. Although you created/modified it, you have no rights at all to it.

  67. Ask your boss to sign disclaim.future by raarts · · Score: 1

    disclaim.future is a standard form supplied by the FSF exactly for these kind of situations. I couldn't find it on their website any more, but google knows where to find it.



    I am an employer myself, and did so without any hesitation. If your boss wants to know more about opensource, GPL and the like, encourage him to ask around in his social network.



    1. Re:Ask your boss to sign disclaim.future by antelopelovefan · · Score: 1

      Here's a copy of disclaim.future from XEmacs

  68. Careful! by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Interesting
    When I joined my present employer I had to sign a big page of legal nonsense about not joining competing companies for 3 years after I quit/get-fired. I also had to sign away that every single thing I do (including this post) while employed here is company property. At work, at home, all times of the day... To legally release open source code I would have to write it, convince our legal department that it's useless to the company. After about a year or so of fighting very unintelligent executives I may be given permission to own my work, and thus release clean, GPL code.

    So if anyone wonders why nothing good ever gets done from our company, this is why.

    1. Re:Careful! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      So if anyone wonders why nothing good ever gets done from our company, this is why.

      So if your remarks are legally owned by your company, then your remark is your company's, and therefor, your company is essentially saying what you're saying, then your company's saying that nothing good ever happens at.. ...

      Lawyer time, dude. ;)

  69. Been thre, done that - some advice by Samrobb · · Score: 5, Informative

    Where I'm working right now (TimeSys), I've been involved in contributions to Eclipse and Cygwin. Here's some advice:

    ASSUME THAT YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO RELEASE ANYTHING WITHOUT PERMISSION.

    If there's no clear policy already in place, ask. You probably don't have the authority to act as an agent of the company with regard to making decisions about IP. (If you don't know for sure whether you have that authority or not, you should assume not until someone tells you otherwise.) Keep pushing the suggestions/requests up the chain of command until you reach someone who has the authority to say "yea". They may still tell you "nay", but at least you'll be getting a decision on the matter instead of an "I can't make this decision, I don't want to bother my boss, so I'll just say no" response.

    START WITH SOMETHING SMALL.

    In my case, it was getting permission to submit patches to correct bugs - very small, very simple, very non-threatening things. The argument was that we could submit the patches, or go through the pain of developing the same patches again with each new release of the software we were using. That's a good way to get the foot in the door: show that there's a benefit to submitting patches that outweighs any perceived risk. If you can show that you spend X days out of every release cycle generating the same ol' patches again and again, it's an even more convincing argument.

    DON'T PUSH TOO HARD.

    For some companies, this is a big step to take. Let the folks who make the decisions think about the idea, answer their questions honestly, and be persistent without harassing them every day about the issue. You don't want to have them tell you "no" just so you'll quit bugging them.

    BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU GET.

    I don't mean that when you get the first "no", you should give up. You need to be reasonable in your expectations - IMHO, submitting patches for bug fixes is fairly minor, and the reaction to that request should give you an idea of how receptive your maangement might be towards the idea of more substantial work & contributions.

    My employer lets us submit bug fix patches freely for one project, at the developer's discretion. Minor feature additions in the same project require approval, which is generally easy to get. Other projects require management approval for all patches, no matter waht. Some projects that require copyright assignments are still in the "we're considering it" phase, and may never be approved. We've contributed at least one large chunk of original code to a project, and are considering doing it for a couple of others, as well, because while we want the software to have feature X, we don't want to have to maintain feature X. That's a pretty good argument to try if you're trying to get approval to submit a patch that adds a feature or functionality to an existing project :-)

    --
    "Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
  70. Re:Simply put: I DO by GoofyBoy · · Score: 1

    >The same argument could be made for preventing you from doing almost anything you don't have to do, regardless of how public spirited.

    Not really. Its usually not worth it to sue an individual unless its to make a point because there will be very little monetary rewards.

    A company usually has bigger pockets and are worthwhile to sue.

    --
    The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
  71. I found Jon Katz secure location: +1, Patriotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    at Slate

    Where is President-Vice Cheney?

    Cheers,
    W00t

    1. Re:I found Jon Katz secure location: +1, Patriotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what the hell is that - a katz article with no place to post comments? And shouldn't he have to have some megan's law disclosure on all his future articles? Something to ID him as a sex offender. And where the hell is Junis?

      This site has sucked worse than before without the greatest meta-troll of all time - bring back Katz!! You know a front page article by him would pull 1000 comments (most trolls but still). Taco you pussy, bring him back.

  72. Follow up by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

    I forgot to say this in my last post.

    If your proprietary code contains GPL'ed code, and you distribute your proprietary app, then you are "only" in a license violation. You have two choices:
    1. GPL your entire codebase.
    2. Remove the GPL'ed code.

    Mind you, this is a choice! Your codebase *will not* become GPL'ed "automatically" or "by definition"!

    However, if you don't distribute your app, then there's no problem.

  73. Don't WASTE code... by Good+Sumerian · · Score: 1

    Just put your company's code up on the Internet under the GPL.

  74. Red Hat contributes significantly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The first case proposes that money can be made via selling support for the free software product. This is by far the strongest case and is proven to work, for a few small companies. The two companies that are shown as positive examples of this business model are Red Hat and Caldera, who distribute and support the Linux operating system. What is never mentioned is that neither of these two companies has contributed significantly in relative terms to the Linux development process.

    Umm, ever heard of Alan Cox? You know, the core developer who works for Red Hat?

    Idiot.

    1. Re:Red Hat contributes significantly! by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      In RELATIVE TERMS, not significant. This is relative to the entire OSS effort.

    2. Re:Red Hat contributes significantly! by rhavyn · · Score: 1

      Red Hat employs the maintainers or a subset of the development teams for the linux kernel, gcc, glibc, autoconf, automake, libtool, gdb, glib, gtk, gnome, and postgres. That is off the top of my head. That seems pretty significant to me.

  75. Re:Simply put: I DO by Mawen · · Score: 1
    Vicarious liability, for one reason. Your employer (in most jurisdictions) is at least partly responsible for your actions whilst you are in their employ, and on their time. It hardly seems fair for them to be expected to assume liability without having the capacity to mitigate it, does it?

    IANAL, but why not just claim the individual, and not the company, is the one who is submitting the bugfix/improvement to the open source project, and not the company, so that liability rests upon the individual?
  76. OpenSource on Company Time by Stormcrow309 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It depends on your company. You might of signed a form that states that the company owns whatever you write, even if it is job related or not. Depends on the company, usually the larger companies are more draconian about it.

    On the reverse side, my company does not require any such statement to be signed. So, technically, I own all my code. Should make any layoffs fun around here.

    'What? No severance package? I will make you a deal on my code. Either that or you remove it.'

    It is an extream example but entirely possible to happen.

    --

    In God we trust, all others require data.

    1. Re:OpenSource on Company Time by RocketJeff · · Score: 2, Informative
      On the reverse side, my company does not require any such statement to be signed. So, technically, I own all my code. Should make any layoffs fun around here.
      If you're in the US, this is wrong. According to title 17 of the US Code, an employer owns the copyright to "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment."

      If you're a consultant this doesn't hold true (but that's why contracts stipulate the ownership). If you're an employee they already hold all copyrights to everything they pay you to do.

    2. Re:OpenSource on Company Time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IANAL - but I think that the default ownership for contracted work falls under "Work for Hire" and is owned by the client.

      As a contractor I always *try* to retain ownership of the _work product_ and give BSD style license to the client, although most of the time their lawyers have a knee-jerk response to the clause. At this point I have to explain that I will be using libraries that I already own and adapting them to meet their specific needs and point out the cost saving that this will afford them.

      Of course, I've never worked on anything that would actually be considered core business, like a software company that wanted to sell the resulting product.

    3. Re:OpenSource on Company Time by d-e-w · · Score: 1

      If you're in the US, that interpretation may be wrong under several different laws (including copyright.)

      If you are a full-time employee, anything you do in the context of your employment belongs to the company. It's not your copyright, it's the company's copyright. They don't need a contract for this to be true; it's federal law.

      Even if you're only a contractor or a freelancer, you might not own the copyright to anything you produce in return for money (unless your contract specifically says otherwise.) Works for hire belong to the company that paid you for them.

  77. Depends upon your company's policy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My company claims ownership of anything I do or develop, even on my own time using my own equipment. Now, i doubt any of their policy would stand up in court, but that is what the policy says.

    1. Re:Depends upon your company's policy by WetCat · · Score: 1

      Can you ask a lawyer about that? How much a lawyer will charge for that kind of questions? How to find a lawyer that can answer that questions?

  78. I'd like to explain it to my CEO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But they won't let me in the country club.

  79. Re:My thoughts? by confused+one · · Score: 1
    ahhh Anonymous, that is your name isn't it? Well, it's not the business I'm opposed to, it's the Taking other peoples work that bothers me.

    evil refers to how he uses his evil powers to crush the competition by duplicating their efforts, bundling it with the OS "for free" and then somehow convincing the government that it's all legit...

    I'll never understand, I guess my standards are too high.

  80. Re:Simply put: I DO by 1u3hr · · Score: 1
    Not really. Its usually not worth it to sue an individual unless its to make a point because there will be very little monetary rewards.

    I meant "you" when at work, in which case your employer could theoretically be liable.

  81. Re:Simply put: I don't. by dreamchaser · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Even being a used care salesman is better than being an asshat troll like yourself.

    There are some very bad consultants out there, yes. There are also some very skilled ones who are worth every penny that they charge.

    There I go again...feeding the trolls...

  82. How Ironic by bedammit · · Score: 1

    I posted a similar note in my Journal. I think that this is why Linux is as good as it is. BeDammit

  83. GPL should be enough of a policy by devvincy · · Score: 1

    The GPL pretty much covers that area. If you or any one else contributes to open source software released under the GPL it can just be flung out the as it were. This is because the code is not onwed by your company, or even you for that matter. It now falls under the GPL as well. If the open source projects you are contributing to are covered under other lisences this can dramaticly change what can be done. Some require the code to be recontributed, others, ala FreeBSD, would allow the company to make it completely propriertary.

    So sadly there is no way to come up with a 100% solution that is anything more then to simply re-release the changes to the community. Otherwise a separate plan would need to be made for any liscense ever worked under.

    Working for an open source developer solves that issue nicer then anything else :)

    --
    I hope the third little piggy got mad cow - ^_^
  84. I added an explicit OSS clause to my contract by phamlen · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm also a consultant, working for a not-for-profit, and I added a specific contract clause allowing me to contribute to OSS.

    The big code issue for my client was that they wanted explicit ownership of the code. They didn't want partial ownership, or to give me the rights to reuse the code, etc. I wanted the right to reuse what I developed elsewhere. We ended up compromising with a clause that allowed me to contribute any "fixes or improvements" to open source code back to the community. Interestingly, they were quite willing to accept this clause at contract time.

    So I actually have an explicit contractual clause that allows me to contribute back. It makes me happy. :)

  85. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Chibi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's the problem here if you are paid for your time?

    Just bill for the time you put in on submitting patches to GPL/Open Source software.

    It's a reasonable expense and you offer a more "standard" industry solution than a near worthless one man spagetti job of code that has no community or testing infrastructure (i.e. many eyeballs)



    Try explaining to a client how you just charged them to add some functionality to something that will be used by others for free. It's great karma, but most suits aren't too interested in karma...

    Another problem is that most people are more interested in short-term costs. Look at all the publicly-traded companies that will lay off people in order to boost their stocks in the short-term. The only people that really care about long-terms costs are either people in direct ownership or people with some level of perspective. Most grunts these days are probably figuring they won't be around at a specific company for long (whether it's their choice or the choice of someone else). And the best way to look good quickly is lowering short-term costs...

    --
    If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
  86. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought all the employment contracts today specified anything you do at any time regardless of time or location belongs to the company?

  87. Re:Simply put: I DO by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not in my experience. Some do, some don't. Many people don't even have contracts, but company policies usually exist regarding IP that is produced while employed at said company.

    In some cases those restrictions even extend to one's free time. If you work for a company that develops software and decide to write some OSS on your own time, you could very well be putting your job at risk.

    The moral: read the fine print before signing and/or going to work someplace.

  88. It depends on the usage by d3faultus3r · · Score: 1

    I would say that you should probably find a middle ground. If you have modifed an open source heavily enough that it is obviously distinct from the original, then keep it within the company. However, if you simply fixed a few bugs or made it slightly more stable without adding that much new functionality to it, then you should probably contribute it. Also, if you're just using it for within the company and it won't be sold to anyone, it wouldn't hurt to give that to the open source community since it has no effect on business. In summary: If it won't harm the company, then you might as well contribute it.

    Those would be my guidelines. You should probably ask around within your company before you do anything though.

    --
    read my blog
    musings on politics and technol
  89. MODULARIZE by willtsmith · · Score: 1

    As a compromise, you may consider making architecture changes that allow independent implementations of proprietary stuff you make (largely through interfaces). Of course, you would include a null implementation that effectively disables the feature. You DO effectively tell everyone else WHAT you're doing, but not EXACTLY HOW you're doing it. They have to implement that themselves.

    If others release implementations that are better, than you could use theirs instead. If your stuff is so hot that no-one else can touch it, well I suppose you'd keep using your version.

    Such a methodology would also create an excellent model for competition (public and private) within open source. Additionally, it would raise the modularity of code so one could essentially mix and match.

    --
    -------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
  90. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    IANAL, but why not just claim the individual, and not the company, is the one who is submitting the bugfix/improvement to the open source project, and not the company, so that liability rests upon the individual?

    The plaintiff's lawyers will claim the individual did the work for the company and will try to get the company involved so the company's deeper pockets are reachable.

  91. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    And in particular, when in the history of this world, has "malicious code [been] deliberately released" as part of an OSS?

    Maybe our good buddies at SCO might know.

  92. Re:what do you mean? mdfyn GPL and never giving ba by d3faultus3r · · Score: 2, Informative

    Calm down, did you even read his post? He was wondering about how to give back to the community without getting in trouble with his company. So he is planning to give back to the community.

    --
    read my blog
    musings on politics and technol
  93. The best way to get permission is like this ... by BillsPetMonkey · · Score: 1

    Tell your boss that you can do write the software and release under the "company's license model" (ie closed source) but that would take longer than deriving something from OSS code you've seen which just happens to do very nearly what your boss wants ...

    --
    "It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
  94. Check out the contract! by bildstorm · · Score: 1

    Being the son of a lawyer, I've been trained to read all contracts as if they were written and would be used by the devil himself.

    I've been presented with a number of contracts that said more/less that anything I created during my time of employment (not just on company time, not just related to the company itself) would be the intellectual property of the company.

    Fortunately, I've either gotten those contracted changed to reflect work relevant to the company, or to exclude prior works that I'm continuing on, or having simply been in countries where my homework (and the advice of a laywer) has shown that those contracts are invalid.

    So do a LOT of research into what's in your contract and get that amended if you have to. Your supervisor may change, but the contract likely won't, and you could find yourself with someone firing and subsequently suing you.

    (On the flip side, if you're lucky like me, you don't point out the stuff that lets you off the hook, like the NDA I signed that was invalid under the laws it was written because if failed to mention a penalty value. Hee-hee! I can sell the secrets! Same with another non-compete clause that was too broad. Now I can take the secrets and work for your competitor!)

    --
    The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
  95. Get it in writing by kjs3 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Having spent lots of money with lawyers over this sort of thing...


    First let me say that there is a distinction between "what is right" and "what is legal". Many things that are not legal are right, and vice versa. I'm not interested in getting into a lot of "but that's not right!" arguments; I'm simply relating what the legal realities are as I understand them.


    The only way to really be safe is to write down exactly what it is that you intend to contribute and get an officer of your company (or other superior who clearly has the authority to commit the company) to sign off acknowledging that the company will make no claims against your contribution. Stick to what has been agreed to, and get written addendums if there is "scope creep" on your open source project.


    If they won't sign off in writing, you can assume that they will take action of some kind against you if you decide to do it anyway. As my lawyer used to say "contracts aren't for when people are happy with one another". Might be a good idea to look at other options (of employment, if you're committed is to your OSS project).


    I would also note that unlike some wildly misguided people I've heard recently, you cannot simply take something you don't own (in the legal sense), release it with a GPL notice on top, and be free and clear legally. Sure, that code can't be "called back", but you (and people who use your code assuming you had the right to apply the GPL to that work) might very well find yourself in court. Ownership of the code (and thus who has the right to determine the license) is determined by the contract you entered into, and the courts will decide your fate based on that.


    Be aware that some employment contracts state things to the effect that anything you do "in the field" can be claimed by your employer. Thus, just because your contribution is done on your own time with your own equipment, you still could be liable for action. Know exactly what your employment contract says (hopefully you did that before you signed it). Have a laywer (your own laywer) explain it to you if you aren't very familiar with contract language.


    Also note that simply not signing an IP agreement does not automatically absolve you of its terms. Look for other employment paperwork that says things like "by accepting employment you implicitly agree to all our required employment contracts". I've definately seen people bit hard by this. If your employer has an IP agreement, then negotiate the terms you want and sign that so that all is tidy and legal. Again, consult your own lawyer to know exactly where you stand.


    Know your rights under state law. Different states have wildly different interpretations of the strength of employment agreements. Contract language which would bind you up in one state might very well be tossed out as onerous in another. Consult a lawyer.


    You do not want to litigate over this; you want to avoid putting yourself in that position. Even if you win, it's generally very expensive, annoying, frustrating and you'll often as not loose the job as a result. Don't sue "on principle" unless you know you have enough money, time, etc., to survive the process (including the possibility of loosing...no matter how strong you think your case is, the legal world is bizzarro world, and outcomes are not always deterministic). Special Fact - generally, if you sue your company (e.g. to claim ownership), and they decide to countersue you (say, for breach of contract), you won't be able to drop your suit (even if you run out of money), unless the other party agrees to it. Hint - they won't unless you back down.


    Lastly...do not simply take your managers verbal word that there will be no problems. Get it in writing. There is a doctrine of "verbal contracts" (I suppose "implied authority" also plays here) under the law, but they are difficult to make stick, especially if the other side is determined to invalidate it. OTOH, "Paper has a perfect memory", as one of my old biz partners used to say.


    N.B. - I can speak only for the U.S. There are different subtleties elsewhere...

    N.N.B. - IANAL, nor do I want to be...

  96. there are many factors to consider by sir_cello · · Score: 3, Informative


    * you mention that you are currently customising open source software, does this mean that you are legitimately honouring the licenses associated with that software ? if not, then that should be your first step. the choice here is simple: either honour the license, or don't use the software. this may require you to make available your modifications.

    * you really need to write up a business case: why is in the companies interest to do this ? will it be "pr" ? will it cost ? will it cause legal (liability) issues ? will others run with the software and turn it into something better (free labour for you) ? does the work required (to package, make available, etc) outweigh the costs ?

    You need to answer these questions in an intelligent and reasoned way before someone else (i.e. your engineering manager / etc) is going to allow this to occur.

    1. Re:there are many factors to consider by egeorge · · Score: 2, Informative
      you mention that you are currently customising open source software, does this mean that you are legitimately honouring the licenses associated with that software?

      We are honoring the license. All of our modifications have so far remained in-house.

      you really need to write up a business case: why is in the companies interest to do this ? will it be "pr" ? will it cost ? will it cause legal (liability) issues ?

      All these questions have been asked and answered for the code that we are currently looking at submitting. The challenge is to establish a process (and documentation) to get these issues settled easily on an ongoing basis.

  97. Re:My thoughts? by batkins · · Score: 1

    Duplicating their effors? How much can one web browser really differ from another? And including software in an OS is entirely "legit."

  98. Re:Simply put: I don't. by mcrbids · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm a consultant, paid for my time and the IP I develop. I would not dare to risk cross-contamination by doing anything more than downloading and using open-source packages at the office.

    As a fellow consultant, I have a few questions for you:

    1) Do your clients require that *you* wrote it, or that the thingamajig works?

    2) Do your clients mind if sections of their codebase that aren't part of the core deliverable (libraries and the like) improve with time without further investment on their part?

    3) Do you read the licenses for the stuff that you develop in proprietary software to ensure that "contamination" is not happening there, too? Some of the EULAs for compilers and IDEs can be quite frightening when you actually READ them.

    I use *alot* of GPL and LGPL stuff in my work. The key is to ensure that the GPL stuff is called as an external process, (so it's effectively its own program) and the LGPL stuff sits in its own, separate file.

    I contribute changes and improvements constantly.

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  99. Re:Simply put: I don't. by jimsum · · Score: 1

    If you are using Open Source software to fulfill your contract, your client is getting the benefit of someone else's free work.

    If you are fixing a bug to help the client, they are getting the value out of your time. If you give the bug fix to others, in return for use of the Open Source code, why should your employer care?

    --
    -- Pot is safer than Beer
  100. That is TERRIBLE advice by lordcorusa · · Score: 1

    This is some of the worst advice I have ever seen on Slashdot.

    As some other posters mentioned, you can get into a lot of trouble by leaking code outside the company if you don't have a right to it. You should always make sure you have not just implied but explicit permission, preferably written on paper, before sending code outside the company. But there is a danger here far greater than just getting yourself into trouble.

    Remember, whenever you contribute code to an F/OSS project, you have a moral obligation to the project and all of its users to ensure that you have a right to make that contribution. If you don't, you are setting the project up for potential legal trouble later on if your company decides to go after the project for use of unauthorized code. The project may be forced to rewrite significant parts of code, and it will make the project and all of F/OSS software look bad to the public.

    I do not believe SCO's allegations about Linux, but if there is indeed any unauthorized SCO code in Linux, this method is how it got there.

    Always, always, always be crystal clear that you have a right to code you contribute to F/OSS. If in doubt, don't contribute. It's not just you you should be worried about, it is the whole project!

    --
    The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
    1. Re:That is TERRIBLE advice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdotter also have a moral obligation to respect copyrights on music and software......

    2. Re:That is TERRIBLE advice by Saucepan · · Score: 1

      That's a very good point.. I hadn't considered that angle. Even if your current employer is certain never to care, you never know that some future SCO won't come along, buy out the IP, then look for ways to raise a stink.

      I'd mod you up but (alas) I've already posted in this discussion.

  101. you're so fired by joe_bruin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    if you were my employee, and you wasted your time writing 'md5deep', you'd be fired. this is a 5 minutes shell script.

    md5deep, reimplemented in shell, for your benefit. not tested, i'm sure there are some bugs. yes, it could use refinement, but this is a one minute job.

    recursion:
    $ find . -type f | xargs md5sum

    time estimation:
    #on my machine i get about 40 megs per second
    #using md5sum (openssl is faster)
    echo "`du -sk | cut -f1` / 40000" | bc

    1. Re:you're so fired by gurudyne · · Score: 3, Informative

      And, the shell script for Windows is????

      --
      Hey, Mom! Is it beer, yet?
    2. Re:you're so fired by agentZ · · Score: 2, Informative

      First, remember that I have a government job and pretty much can't get fired. [wink]

      Secondly, as somebody else noted, there is no default scripting ability in Windows. md5deep was originally developed a module for a Windows incident response tool called the First Responder's Evidence Disk (FRED). We have just obtained permission to make FRED public and will be releasing it soon. The linux/*BSD/OS X versions of md5deep were all ports written by people outside of the USG.

      Ironically enough, however, it was easier to write, compile, debug, and test md5deep under Linux than Windows.

    3. Re:you're so fired by Electrum · · Score: 2, Informative

      And, the shell script for Windows is????

      It works just fine under Cygwin.

    4. Re:you're so fired by messju · · Score: 1

      find . -type f -print0|xargs -0 md5sum

      with a gnu-find at least, or you may get some funky errors that look exploitable

    5. Re:you're so fired by Cromac · · Score: 1
      Secondly, as somebody else noted, there is no default scripting ability in Windows.

      That depends on which verision of Windows you're using. Everything since I belive Windows 98 SE has come with WSH (Windows Scripting Host) to run vbscript and javascript.

    6. Re:you're so fired by ottffssent · · Score: 1

      start|run|http://www.cygwin.com

      download / install cygwin

      $ find . -type f | xargs md5sum

      10-minute job.

      --
      High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
    7. Re:you're so fired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It works just fine under Cygwin

      In that case, fire the people who helped code WINE. After all, those programs work just fine under Windows.

    8. Re:you're so fired by Chris_Jefferson · · Score: 1

      Installing Cygwin a 10 minute job?

      Not over any kind of small internet connection...
      also cygwin is a fairly huge install if all you want is some md5 sums.

      --
      Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
  102. Only with managements knowledge and.. by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1

    ...express permission. Anything else, and you leave too many people (including yourself) hanging out in the breeze.

  103. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Chibi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you are using Open Source software to fulfill your contract, your client is getting the benefit of someone else's free work.

    If you are fixing a bug to help the client, they are getting the value out of your time. If you give the bug fix to others, in return for use of the Open Source code, why should your employer care?



    You don't read much Dilbert, do you? ;)

    Everything you say makes sense and is logical, but the problem is that the world is messed up. We're in a world where everyone wants to take, but very few want to give (or give back).

    Just look at some of the things that are happening in the world today. Crazy patents. Companies using scare-tactics on their customers. I'm not saying it's all bad, but chances are that you will have a hard time convincing someone with tunnel-vision how contributing helps them out.

    Me skeptical? Yeah, I won't argue that. I used to be a very optimistic guy, but having to work has shown me that most people are just selfish. If you can find place where people really want to work together, cherish that. :)

    (the worst part is that I've adopted this attitude, and I'm still in my 20's!)

    --
    If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
  104. Similar situation by thelenm · · Score: 2, Informative

    There was an interesting PerlMonks discussion about a very similar question not too long ago that you might be interested in reading.

    --
    Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
  105. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where I work I suppose to be contributing our changes back, but I don't have the time. I usually just end up sending out bug reports with possible fixes and letting others get the code included if it's important enough.

  106. Re:Simply put: I DO by ClippyHater · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The moral: read the fine print before signing and/or going to work someplace.

    Or, in my case, thank GOD! that someone FINALLY called me for an interview and hired me: sign nda/what-have-you, and begin working and being paid (hurray!!) again after 18 months. It's a tough job market for some, and we can't be too choosey in what we'll accept in an nda/what-have-you.

    But if you want to keep your job, definitely talk over everything that even BARELY seems questionable, even things you consider non-questionable.

    Until there's another tech bubble, I'm super-gluing my butt in my cube. I'll retire the day they find my bleached white bones slumped over my keyboard.

  107. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Bah! I don't even worry about it. The entire infrastructure where I work wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for free software. If there's something we need done that can be done by modifying some open source code, well, it gets modified for productivity reasons. If the changes are things that are beneficial to more than just our organization they are made available without the management knowing a damn thing about it. I don't give a rat's ass whether or not they "allow" us to do it. Then again, I don't share your "doing it on their time, not your own" belief...at least when it comes to modifying software that is open source already. Software written from scratch while at work is another story.

  108. Your own time by msobkow · · Score: 4, Informative

    Clauses about owning what you do on your own time don't usually hold up in court, and I've yet to run into a client who wasn't willing to stroke that section out of the contract when I explain why it's an issue for me and my career.

    The two places I've worked that leveraged OSS were good about posting their enhancements, one works directly with the developers for a key OSS product they use. (It's been a big benefit to both -- the OSS developer has been adding features they need, and they've been providing him a "real life" debug environment with a highly skilled team and solid feedback.)

    I've always specifically steered clients away from GPL libraries, as their business IP isn't worth risking when there are LGPL (or equivalent) libraries that do the same job. Rah-rahs for the GPL and all that, but banks and financial companies aren't even going to consider putting their internal processing systems out as GPL software, and don't qualify for internal-use-only exceptions in most cases.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:Your own time by rehabdoll · · Score: 1

      Isnt it illegal to "own" the employees free time like this? I would think it atleast would fall under any anti-slave laws or something.

    2. Re:Your own time by strobert · · Score: 1

      Also if you are lucky you can get a clause about the company not owning any work on Open Source projects. I managed to get one in mine. The spirit of the company is to give back, but having the legal okay makes things just so much eaiser (and safer for both you and the OSS project).

  109. Re:Simply put: I DO by Ngwenya · · Score: 1
    The same argument could be made for preventing you from doing almost anything you don't have to do, regardless of how public spirited.

    No - only actions which are in breach of the law.

    And in particular, when in the history of this world, has "malicious code [been] deliberately released" as part of an OSS?

    Well, OpenSSH was trojaned. But frankly, the frequency of the incidents is pretty much irrelevant. The point is one of principle - is it right for an employee of a company to place it in jeopardy without it having any method of lowering its exposure to liability?

    The upside for the company is an increase of good will, which transates into sales.

    You're preaching to the converted, reverend! The question isn't whether OSS makes good business sense or not - it does. The question is simply one of whether the company has any right to exercise control over the output of its employees when working on company time - and IMHO it does. I wish that people were honest and wouldn't commit actions which harm others, but our laws are designed for the people we have, not those we'd like to have.

    --Ng

  110. excellent crap analogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but you missed a very significant GPL point.

    If you grazed your cattle on the GPL commons, they just wouldn't own all the crap, they would also now own your cows!

    1. Re:excellent crap analogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NO - If I host my site on LAMP, I still own it. If I find a bug in one of the apache packages, fix it, and submit the patch, I own the patch but give a GPL license to that patch. If I write a new module to run [flavor of the day] on apache I own it, and can do with it as I chose.

  111. Profit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the addition / change you have will help the company in the next release. That would be the reson you give. It is much harder to justify giving away widgets becuase you feel the need to give back. That would require the company to figure out if was worth something first.
    So if you can not answer the question:

    1. give away code
    2. ????
    3. Profit

    They will say no.

  112. My exp. with GPL at work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since my company did not pay overtime, I would schedule my time to develop libraries at home. Only libraries unrelated to the core company business (network utilities, debugging libs, monitoring stuff). Since no company time or hardware was used to create them I added a GPL license in the source headers, with a clear indication that my employer was exempted as long as any code change is sent to me. I knew I could never enforce it, but I did not really care. I then mailed the source at work. Overall I would say that this code was less than 2% of the total work (I was doing more âoeovertimeâ at work than at home).

    My goal was to keep utility code for re-use in the future, since I was receiving no pay to do it anyway! The company was in really bad shape and I believed they had less than a year to live.

    A few months later I got âlet goâ(TM) (with most of the employees) and heard that a âoebig boss was really pissed of at my GPL additions a few months backâ. Strangely enough that boss never looked at code, and I never saw so much politics and backstabbing as I did in that company, I am sure this was presented to the boss by another coder under a bad light.

    I canâ(TM)t say this is why I was let go, but it surely played a major role, since that boss made âoethe Listâ of who stayed and who left! This was probably stupid of me, but I still think I was in my rights to do so. So let this be a lesson for others (whatever that lesson is).

  113. Contributing to SLASHDOT on company time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First, remember that I have a government job and pretty much can't get fired. [wink]
    Given the time of day of your post... you ARE wasting my tax dollars spending time to read and post to Slashdot. Now GET BACK TO WORK YOU SLACKER!!!!! ON THE DOUBLE!!!!!!

  114. Whoops, I slipped! Where's my royalties, asshole?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Canine-11
    Why Americans are obsessed with "rescuing" dogs. By Jon Katz

    I was walking in a nearby park recently when an enormous muttâ"a Lab/shepherd mix, from the looks of itâ"came bounding down the wooded path, plowed into my belly, and knocked me down, touching off a spirited tiff with my two border collies.

    As I clambered to my feet, a middle-aged man came chugging up, agitated and out-of-breath. He began belatedly scolding the genial and oblivious dog, whose name was Bear, explaining that Bear was a rescued dog, "probably abused." So the guyâ"who introduced himself as Stanâ"didn't want to train him to come, sit, or stop ricocheting into people, not yet; Bear had been through so much heartache already. He did lecture Bearâ""no," "bad dog," "why don't you listen to me?"â"long after the fact and well beyond the point of usefulness.

    Finding Bear was no cinch, it turned out. Stan told me he had combed animal shelters for months but found that in the Northeast, at least, the number of abandoned and adoptable dogs has fallen in recent years; new leash laws had resulted in fewer lost and straying dogs, and a sharp rise in neutering and spaying meant fewer dogs running around period. Stan didn't want to simply buy some fancy purebred pet, he explained, not when there were so many creatures in need. He preferred to save one from misery, possibly even death.

    So Stan went online and located Bear not in New Jersey, where we lived, but in a "foster home" in Alabama, via a rescue site listed on Petfinder.com. The demand for "rescued" dogs is so great that groups often have to scour faraway rural areas these days to find abused dogs for people to adopt.

    Bear was transported north, by volunteer "transporters" located via mailing lists on the Net, and delivered to a local New Jersey "fosterer" for evaluation. "Screeners" check possible homes and new owners. Stan and his home and family were thoroughly evaluated before he was permitted to bring Bear home. "Believe me," he said with some pride, "it was easier for me to buy a house than to get this dog." The screeners returned more than once and let him know they would be back periodically. He signed a document promising to care for the dog and to never let the dog walk off-leash.

    Now he was crazy about the dog, he confessed. It seemed to me that at least part of that feeling stemmed from his pride in having spared the animal a grim fate.

    How did he know that Bear had been abused? I asked. "You can just tell," Stan assured me. "It's obvious. If you come near him with a leash or collar or stick, he looks terrified."

    I'd heard such stories countless times. It needs to be said that there are innumerable and well documented stories of horrific abuse inflicted on dogs. At a Brooklyn shelter I visited a few months ago, I saw dogs that had been burned almost to death, abandoned, starved, poisoned, nearly drowned, beaten, and horribly mauled after being used as training fodder for fighting dogs. Rescue volunteers go to extraordinary lengths to save and care for these dogs.

    But many professional trainers and dog lovers have become wary. They often roll their eyes when people explain that their dogs have been abused, seeing that as an excuse for obnoxious or aggressive behavior and as a way to avoid the effort of training. Many also sense a need for some dog owners to see their pets as suffering victims, rather than animals.

    Pet behaviorists will tell you that it's usually impossible to know what dogs have actually been through, since they can't tell us. Dogs who are simply adjusting to new homes or poor training frequently show the same behaviors as ill-treated dogs: cowering, trembling, eliminating, shying away from the unfamiliar.

    But dogs, like so many other things, are a mirror of the society weâ"and theyâ"live in. And a growing number of Americans not only need to rescue a creature, but to perceive those creatures as having been mistreated. Som

  115. I hope this guy doesn't work for IBM! by Jboy_24 · · Score: 3, Informative

    With the current SCO hub-bub, I think every developer who thinks about submitting code developed at work and every developer accepting new code from outside developers realize that the code you are submitting is the property of the company you work for!

    Ultimately its there decisicion, if you feel like doing it without permission to 'Help' the open source community you are actually hurting the project and community almost beyond repair.

    Unless you get writen signed off permission from someone who can give permission, 5-7 years from when you submitted the code, your company can still claim ownership to that data. Right now your boss may say "go for it!", 5 years from now, you and him are probably gone and forgotten, yet the company can still sue the project you submitted to because it contains their property.

    Please, please if your not sure, don't submit!

  116. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not the OP but do consulting work...

    The #1 question that clients end up asking is We own this, right?. Maybe not for "My PHP Discussion Board", but definitely if it's a strategic part of their business and critical to their valuation.

    Now this is a concern not just for open source components, but various bits of library code that you've been carting around. In fact, on a couple occasions I've been paid to rewrite perfectly good library bits just so the client can have clear copyright on the result.

    So the question you need to ask yourself before you get into this situation is What does the client think they own? and make sure that you are upfront with them and the contract covers it.

  117. not sure if I understand this by zogger · · Score: 1

    I am not clear on one point. If I am incorrect, my apologies in advance of course. Are we to understand the entire corporate "official" mindset and policy so far is to be "leech and profit" only? IF so, it's simple, tell them it just ain't cool to only be a leech. They are cutting their own throat in the long run, and don't "get" the *full* concept of open and free software.

    It's bad karma, man. Tell 'em that. Sharing goes both ways, or it won't work forever. Eventually no one is gonna wanna play nicey nice with you, back to struggling, watching the bigger fish come and get ya. The whole idea is strength and success and over-all profitability through cooperation and sharing. Just "taking" don't cut that software mustard.

  118. Re:Simply put: I don't. by gregfortune · · Score: 1

    So then make the change to the OSS project on your own time (ie, *your* companies time), charge a licensing fee to the client for the commercial use of the code you developed and then release under two licenses like trolltech has done for Qt.

    You've then contributed to OSS, built up a library of your *own* IP and then charged the client for the commercial use of that IP.

  119. LGPL Clarification by ratboy666 · · Score: 1

    when shipping product with LGPL libraries, it must be possible to relink the product with later libraries. Which means that either (1) you use shared objects (.so) format of those libraries, or (2) you distribute the objects of your application. Don't statically link LGPL libraries and then not release source or object files.

    Ratboy.

    --
    Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
    1. Re:LGPL Clarification by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 1

      it must be possible to relink the product with later libraries

      This can also be accomplished by giving customers source code to your program. When you do that, the source code can still be proprietary. Just because the customer got one copy of the source from you, doesn't mean it has to be GLPed and redistributable.

      Under LGPL section 6, there are other ways to comply with the "ability to re-link to new versions of LGPL libraries". Many corporations would prefer option 6c, which only requires them to supply object files if requested within 3 years (after all, few customers will have the technical knowhow to actually wish to make that request)

  120. Re:Simply put: I DO by orev · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's easier to apologize afterward than it is to get permission beforehand.

  121. OK, I give up. by Medievalist · · Score: 1

    Your amazing powers of persuasion have convinced me to give up contributing to OSS projects. I must have been dreaming that I got all those pay raises by writing useful snippets of code, your logic is irrefutable.

    I understand now that I've been devalued, and I will go sacrifice my cat to Ayn Rand as penance. How could I have been so blind!

    1. Re:OK, I give up. by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      I doubt you have contributed anything to the projects. I believe that you are an IT person, not a developer. You like consuming free things, but are not a producer.

  122. Why Open Source saves you money by LoFat+ByLine · · Score: 1

    Since no one else has mentioned it yet, I will: tax-funded organizations can save considerable amounts of public money using open source software. As one example, our provincial post-secondary library system has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees by developing open source versions of commercial products (or rather, leading in the development of these products, since it's the commercial vendors who have been trailing us). It's actually a lot cheaper for us to hire programmers than pay for commercial licences for some of this stuff.

    That's one example, but more generally, consider how much money the public sector must already be saving in annual licensing fees for web server software, operating systems, scripting languages, etc. As far as our agency is concerned, open source means lower costs, increased flexibility, and the ability to do a heck of a lot more with our limited budget.

    1. Re:Why Open Source saves you money by NoCoward · · Score: 1

      Yes, we all know why it is GOOD for the CONSUMERS of the software.

    2. Re:Why Open Source saves you money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pinhead.

      the only people it is not good for are those companies who make most/all their money selling/licensing software. Just like the invention of a cheap, safe, household fusion power source will not be good for companies that make most/all of their money selling nat. gas, electricity and heating oil. The bennifits to everybody else are far greater.

      Get your head out of your self-interested sandbox.

  123. Give your software a license first by chrysalis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's what _may_ work :

    Start the project at home, out of your working hours.

    Make it GPL'ed. As a public proof, you can release an initial public beta version.

    Back to your company, continue to work on the project. Any addition made to it must be GPL'ed as well, isn't it? So even though you are working on it while on company time, you can always release the product as free software.

    --
    {{.sig}}
  124. Hairy Problem; Get It In Writing by phliar · · Score: 2, Interesting
    That's the gist of it. It's easier in a small company, of course -- if the hacker knows the CEO personally it's much easier to get the sign-off. You can actually make the case that it's an excellent marketing statement, and they're more likely to be able to hire the good hackers if they seem aware of hackers' sensibilities. In a large company it's a pain in the ass -- the legal dept. gets involved and they really don't like unfamiliar situations. In their view, the company gets nothing from it; why should they risk any liability, however small?

    Even code you write on your own time -- you don't want the company to later be able to claim that you used their "intellectual property" -- your general knowledge of projects at work -- while writing that code. Perhaps I'm just paranoid, but I make sure to either get my free software activities acknowledged in writing before I accept a job, or not work on free projects that may be related to the stuff I do for hire.

    But most important, don't do it without actual legally binding authorisation from your employer (not just your boss). It's critically important that all the free software out there really is safe for everyone to use.

    --
    Unlimited growth == Cancer.
  125. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's very simple:

    1) Look at the cost of using this open tool

    2) Look at the cost of using this non-open tool

    3) Look at the cost if I have to backport my enhancements every time they release a new version of this thing, especially if they move in a radically different direction

    4) We can get the possibility of additional bugfixing with no additional costs.

    It's not karma, it's business sense.

  126. I have used the FSF blurb by geirhe · · Score: 1
    Available at the bottom of the LGPL license here.

    Verbatim:

    " Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the
    library `Frob' (a library for tweaking knobs) written by James Random Hacker.

    , 1 April 1990
    Ty Coon, President of Vice"

    IANAL, but as I see it, this also releases the company from the wrath of any disgruntled users if it turns out that the patch is less that satisfactory. They don't own the bits and bobs any more.

  127. Re:My thoughts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >>to crush the competition by duplicating their efforts, bundling it with the OS "for free"

    Sorta like OSS?

  128. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Remember that when you're in the unemployment line.

  129. Contributing work-derived ideas to OSS? by raw-sewage · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is slightly off-topic, yet somewhat related... What about contributing ideas or concepts to open source that were developed at your place of work?

    A co-worker and I were having this discussion with regards to the SCO vs IBM case: say I'm developing some technology at work, a state-of-the-art journaling filesystem for example. Now I go home at night and work on an open source journaling filesystem. All the code between work and open source projects is separate (i.e. absolutely no code sharing). However, there are certain concepts and ideas that I will inevitably borrow from my work project and put in the open source project.

    Now we have a potential SCO vs IBM situation on hand: my company finds out that there is some open source using very similar technology (to their own patented or copyrighted work). My company is going to want royalties for this!

    Although a lot of us open sourcers are taking the SCO vs. IBM situation lightly, if it does happen to go in SCO's favor (either by court decision or settlement), it's sets a precedent for companies to go scouring all open source code for possible IP infringement. This will scare corporations away from open source in a heartbeat.

  130. Re:Simply put: I DO by Phronesis · · Score: 1
    Joint and several liability makes it hard to sever the employer's exposure in court. Strict liability means that what makes sense to you or me is not necessarily what happens in court. Consider this:
    In the case of Bigbee v. Pacific Telephone, an intoxicated driver lost control of her car, veered off the road, jumped a curb, crossed the sidewalk, went into a parking lot, and hit a man standing in a telephone booth fifteen feet from the road. It is not surprising that the man in the phone booth filed a lawsuit. What is surprising, though, is that he sued the company responsible for the design and installation of the phone booth.

    Although the lower court tossed out the case, liberal California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird ruled against the phone company. She ruled that the risk that someone might veer off the road and crash into the telephone booth was foreseeable, therefore a jury could hold the company liable. Furthermore, she found of no consequence that the harm to the plaintiff came about because the driver was intoxicated.

    In a related case, the California Supreme Court ruled that when a police officer pulls over a car for doing 85 in a 55 zone and the occupants of the care include several children who were not wearing seatbelts, and a truck on the other side of a median divider veers off the road, crosses the median, and hits the car, injuring the girls, the policeman may be sued for having made the traffic stop.
  131. Re:Simply put: I DO by GoofyBoy · · Score: 1


    Er.. do you want to do the "correct" thing or the "easy" thing.

    If its the "easy" thing then be prepared for the consequences.

    --
    The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
  132. Excuse Me? by JohnwheeleR · · Score: 1
    As developers, though, some of us are a little hesitant to just start flinging code that technically still belongs to the company out into the world.

    If its opensource code your working on, what makes you think it belongs to your company?

  133. My approach... by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    Take an example that never went true because it became a bit too... dedicated? I mean adapting it to more common case would require more work than writing it from scratch, but my intention was quite clear, and only quality of the final code prevented me from releasing it as open source.

    My job: Sysadmin.
    My task: Provide the departament with a consistent "opt-in" daily backup system everyone could use to back up their work.

    What can I do? Well, my boss doesn't care how I do it, just should be done and should be done well. I see this options:
    1. Look around and purchase a commercial system. Not really possible, limited budget and quite specific situation (need to be able to use it from DOS, WinNT, Linux, Solaris and possibly more OSes)
    2. Get a free software solution. Again, not quite possible for reasons above, the network.
    3. Write the app myself.

    Okay, so I pick #3. I write it in my "spare work time" - that is when I'm not assigned some other job. It's still "my private code" but it's towards achieving my boss' goals so he won't protest. I own the final application. I may license it as GNU. And then I implement it. My "paid task" wasn't writing the code so I still own it. But creating it was along the lines of the company needs so they welcome me doing it gladly - after all they will get just what they need from me for free... (and they aren't a software business anyway :)

    Other situation - development of some other big app. "Look, boss, this thing could be useful for us if it had this and this... I could code that but it's GNU and the code would have to be licensed as that. (oh well, it could become our company's closeware too, but boss doesn't need to know that, plus I can credit my company in that part of code to get them free worldwide advertisment) So, what do you think? Can I write that?" "Okay, as long as that doesn't impact your assigned work." - that's the most probable answer.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  134. Re:what do you mean? mdfyn GPL and never giving ba by JohnwheeleR · · Score: 1

    No you don't understand. His companies' adoption of open source codebases obligates them to give back to the community unless they are developing in house tools. This shouldn't be an issue.

  135. Re:Simply put: I DO by GoofyBoy · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't even worry about a NDA unless its insanely restrictive.

    For the vast majority of people, its not worth enforcing a NDA especially if you are on good terms with your manager (and in any job market you should be.)

    --
    The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
  136. You might HAVE to contribute by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · · Score: 1
    "We have recently been doing more and more modification and customization of open source products, and we would love to give some of this back"

    According to the GPL, if you are distributing the modifications outside your company, you have to make the modified source code available.

    1. Re:You might HAVE to contribute by swordgeek · · Score: 1

      So sue him!

      That's right, go get a lawsuit happening. Take that damned GPL to court (although he didn't necessarily mention GPL'd code--there are other licenses out there), and find out if it means anything.

      This is neither a troll or a flame. I've seen damned little evidence that the GPL would stand up in court, and since the 'prevailing view' of what it implies seems to be getting more and more stringent, I'm thinking that the odds of it holding water are going down.

      You can put anything in your licence agreement, but some items will be thrown out if they get to court, for being to onerous. Who can give me a reason why the GPL isn't in that category?

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    2. Re:You might HAVE to contribute by egeorge · · Score: 1

      Actually all of the open source code that we have modified has remained internal. It is mostly tools and service-provider type apps. So we are not distributing any of it.

    3. Re:You might HAVE to contribute by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · · Score: 1

      egeorge - Doesn't it make things easier when you have OSS to modify? A previous employer of mine had a lot of heavily customized GPL/OSS utilities and other software running the internal networks. They also sent bug patches and improvements (those that did not reveal sensitive corporate information) back to the project to prevent having to re-invent the patches every time there was an upgrade.

  137. Re:Simply put: I don't. by mcrbids · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So the question you need to ask yourself before you get into this situation is What does the client think they own? and make sure that you are upfront with them and the contract covers it.

    I *always* mention to the client that I use "free tools everywhere possible" to make the job go faster, reduce development costs and enhance stability. When they ask about "ownership", I calmly explain to them that being "Open Source" means that they own a perpetual right to use said "tools", and that I'm careful to use the tools in such a way as to not contaminate their paid-for sources.

    When given the option of paying more for something that doesn't really get them anything, I've never had anybody turn down the open tools.

    You have?

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  138. Quick answer by hammesqa · · Score: 1

    Ask your boss if its ok. If you don't want to ask them then you already know that they don't want you to do it. Remeber that although you might have the right (depending on your employment contract etc...) your bosses goals for you probably do not include helping with the open source movement.

  139. open source while at work by geekmonk · · Score: 1

    we have to go through a class on open source/ closed source as required by legal here, and then we get an allotment of a few hours a week that we are allowed to to work on open osurce projects. Our company has a huge stake in linux and open source, and they are trying to grow it's culture inside of the company.

    --
    From the country where life is "TRUE BLUE" and tech support reigns..
  140. Wrong, on at least one count by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A local ISP pays you $1000 to write a spam filter. You sign a contract which says, "I agree to write a spam filter and the copyrights belong to the ISP." Who owns it? You do. You can't assign rights to a work that hasn't yet been created.

    No. You've created a contract to assign the copyright when it is completed. So, in effect, you *don't* hold the copyright.

    1. Re:Wrong, on at least one count by Spazmania · · Score: 1

      As a matter of law, you hold the copyright until such a time as you sign your name to a paper which says "I assign the copyright for such and such to so and so."

      Your contract with the ISP _could_ state that you agree to sign over any copyrights to the software you write upon request. Such a contract is enforcable, and you would be in breach if you refused to sign over the copyright. Breach or not, the copyright would still belong to you. Even if they sue, a court can only award monetary damages per title 17 section 201(e):

      (e) Involuntary Transfer.-When an individual author's ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual author, no action by any governmental body or other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate, transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, shall be given effect under this title, except as provided under title 11 [bankruptcy].

      That is not, however, the contract stated in the example. The example said, "the copyrights [will] belong to the ISP." That's an attempt to preassign ownership of copyrights that do not (yet) exist. You're only allowed to do that on a "work made for hire."

      http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#10 1

      A "work made for hire" is-

      (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or

      (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a "supplementary work" is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an "instructional text" is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities.

      You will note that computer software is not listed. If its not on the list, its not a work made for hire, and any copyrights must be explicitly assigned after the work has been created.

      Many a contract has made this mistake, and more than a few companies have found themselves in trouble during the due-diligence phase of an acquisition because of it -- they're faced with tracking down long-gone programmers and convincing them to sign papers assigning the copyrights so that the buyer can have clear title to their software.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
  141. Its not about permission by zander · · Score: 1
    Reading all these highly moderated answers I am aw-struck and at the same time it explains why so little is being contributed by companies..

    The point is simple; you need a solution to a problem, your company can code it in its entire or grab an open source tarball to get to 90% in one day. The only drawback is that the other 10% does not belong to your company.
    Put up 2 stats with the numbers based on spend hours and let them make the decision.
    The beautiful part of this is that most managers will care more about short term 'profits' then the long term profits. So for something that is not directly a 'product' as such I suspect the result will be more 'ok' then 'no way!'

    For those little bugfixes in apache or KDE or whatever; just email them from your home address; those kind of fixes are just for your working environment :)

  142. we ARE open source by butane_bob2003 · · Score: 1

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/bie
    ...so I dont know if the same rules apply. Before we went open with this project, we did contribute to a few projects. (a while ago) Generally, no one at our company minds if you are contributing to an open source project, as long as what you are developing is needed here. Although the contributions might not be immediatly revenue generating, they see the long term benefit of being involved in a wider community. The days are swiftly passing where a product that is developed completely in the dark gains widespread approval on the open market (well, they could be..).

    --


    TallGreen CMS hosting
  143. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I suspect vicarious liability does not extend so far as malicious code, but certainly some jurisdictions do not allow one to waive all warranty, so there may be some liabilities...

  144. Anyone else notice by TheKubrix · · Score: 1

    the irony of the story right before this: "Steal this Idea"

    hehe

  145. Answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IANAL, SAAL!

  146. Completely different situation. by JeanPaulBob · · Score: 1

    As I understand it, Justin Frankel didn't release WASTE--not as a private agent, anyway. He never claimed to own the rights to it. Nullsoft did.

  147. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Jellybob · · Score: 1

    Go work for a charity - I'm at one now and it's the best work enviroment I've been in.

    The pays not so good, but that just means it's the people who really love their job that are around, rather than a bunch of hangers-on. And any code I write (at any point in time, mine or theirs) has my name in the copyright statement.

  148. Re:Simply put: I DO by Narcissus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I guess that all depends on the situation. I work in a relatively small IT company (150 - 200 employees) and we started using an OS project inhouse.

    We started to make changes and were wondering about what to do with them. Not a problem, I emailed our department manager and the CEO and told them what we wanted to do.

    I now have an email direct from my CEO allowing me to release any code I see fit for that project.

    I figured that it would be easier to get permission beforehand than trying to explain it all once someone questioned it...

  149. Re:Simply put: I DO by Narcissus · · Score: 1

    Although I wouldn't say it was malicious code, there's been a little court case going on between SCO and IBM that you may have missed about some alleged confidential code being copied into Linux...

    I think that would be more of an issue than malicious code (ie. copying some code that is protected by some other licence into a GPL project)

  150. Legalities and Ethics :: Inspiration and Theft by mrcamels · · Score: 1

    My buddy may be in some major trouble with his employer, and I'm wondering if it really is a legal thing or possibly just an ethical thing, or maybe not even that. His employer paid him to write a program that would be in direct competition with another program freely available in OS. The software he worked on would not be OS. However, He looked at the source of a 3rd program, (also OS) and took note of how it worked which was written in perl, and re-wrote everything in C/C++, once he found out how the perl program worked he never looked at it again, ie: everything he wrote was his code however he used the way the other program worked as a roadmap to follow for writing his code. Is this in any way infringing the rights of anyone? if so, is he and/or is company liable for these infringements? Where is the line drawn between inspiration and theft? I appreciate your feedback, thankyou.

    1. Re:Legalities and Ethics :: Inspiration and Theft by drfreak · · Score: 1

      I would say that he stole the IP, only because he looked at the perl code. If he simply would have observed the behaviour of the program and tried to re-create it, that would have been a more moral type of reverse-engineering. Looking at code and then re-writing it in another language is not reverse engineering in my opinion.

  151. If you're looking for a process by lkaos · · Score: 1

    If you've developed code on your free time, then you should just be required to receive management approval (to make sure the project you're submitting to doesn't compete with your company).

    Of course, make sure to avoid using company emails and other necessary precautions.

    If it's being submitted by the company, then it should carry the copyright of the company, and your management needs to make the decision to submit it. Remember, it is not your decision to submit code to anyone that you don't own.

    --
    int func(int a);
    func((b += 3, b));
  152. Get a grip by ccbaxter · · Score: 1

    Please, guys - it is only OK to contribute to Open Source on company time if you work for Microsoft...

    --
    Dude, where's my Karma?
  153. Re:Simply put: I don't. by handspike · · Score: 1

    I feel that anyone that uses (and or profit$ from) open source software *and* develops modifications to that code that might be useful to the rest of the users of that application has an obligation to give it back to the community or come as close to doing so as possible. If you are not paying for your own time and don't own the code you develop, then all you can do is explain to the suits the concept of open source and the long term benefits (for everyone) of contributing modifications back to the community as long as they don't compromise corporate IP. Any good manager shouldn't have a problem allowing you to do that (possibly on your own time). If they turn you down, they are probably too stupid to understand anything larger than a paycheck and there's nothing you can do. But you've done your part, you've made the effort!

  154. Re:Simply put: I DO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So what? His company is benefitting from the use of OS software, so why shouldn't they give back any improvements they make in return, instead of the usual license fee they would otherwise have to pay for that software? Free as in speech, not beer, get it?

  155. Re:Simply put: I DO by 1u3hr · · Score: 1
    >>The same argument could be made for preventing you from doing almost anything you don't have to do, regardless of how public spirited.

    >No - only actions which are in breach of the law.

    No, that would make sense, but it isn;t the issue here. Consider restaurants which do not give excess food to the poor for fear of liability, for instance. Many similar "good deeds" are banned by copnaies in fear of litigation.

    >>And in particular, when in the history of this world, has "malicious code [been] deliberately released" as part of an OSS?

    >Well, OpenSSH was trojaned.

    By an "intruder", not a contributor, as far as anyone knows.

    >But frankly, the frequency of the incidents is pretty much irrelevant.

    No, it's highly relevant. This is risk management, and you have to look at real numbers. When the historic number is zero, you can make a good case that the risk is negligible. When insurance companies look at fire risk in relation to smoking, and changed their premiums accordingly, many companies banned smoking, because there was a real risk and cost.

  156. My experience by harikiri · · Score: 2, Insightful
    In all of the environments I've worked in (been in security industry 4 years), the people have been pretty aware of open source/Linux and have been positive about it. Most are willing to consider your request that certain source code/libraries/scripts you develop be made publically available.

    However, this needs to be clearly defined in your original NDA. If you are considering commencing work that might be useful to the open source community, you might want to get your current NDA re-negotiated so that you can get sign-off from your company to release "authorised" components on a per-case basis.

    The main thing that companies will be afraid of is liability and losing face if the product/code/etc is found to be faulty. Most of the boiler-plate open source licenses out there cater to this, by stating that the product is not guaranteed to be fit for any purpose, and that by usage the customer/user takes on all liability themselves:

    (Example, BSD license)

    THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

    As a developer you also can make this easier by separating components of your software, making them modular. So that one library that does one thing in a useful way (but nothing especially proprietary) can be distributed, but another library that does some funky stuff on their proprietary application/database remains closed.

    NOTE: I am not a lawyer! ;-)

    --
    Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
  157. Re:Simply put: I DO by dubl-u · · Score: 1

    Well, sometimes I will be working with a OSS software package and I see a way to make a little change to make it better, or fix a bug. Why should any employer/client worry about that?

    They probably shouldn't. Most of the open-source packages I use are in the category of "infrastructure"; my clients have no interest in, say, competing with Struts, so there should be no problem releasing improvements to it.

    But the client (or employer) is the one who gets to make that decision. You can check the terms of your particular contracts, but by and large software developed on somebody else's nickel belongs to them. It is illegal for you to just up and give it away, and you could put an open source project in serious danger by letting them incorporate code to which they have no rights.

    In my experience, this is pretty hard to get in a contract up front, but pretty easy to get once a client is comfortable with me.

  158. Re:Simply put: I DO by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

    Sure I get it, and I approve of it wholeheartedly. It still is up the the company to make that decision, not the employee. That's all I said.

  159. Company time.. by StikyPad · · Score: 1

    Well, since I read /. on company time, my integrity is perhaps somewhat questionable. However, whenever I'm "working on open source," as you call it, I make sure to keep my fingers near the Windows-M keys. That's all the approval I've needed in the past. Happy programming. :D

    --
    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  160. Giving back to OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    We do.

    I talked it over with my boss. We had some graphing stuff we wanted to do, doing it by hand would have been possible but taken quite some time, so we saved thousands of $ of development time by grabbing an open source library.

    I made some changes to let it display certain things in a better way to meet our requirements. Other people had been asking for the same thing, so I posted code and explanation to the forums of those projects.

    Not really any different from contributing in a discussion in for instance Microsoft Developer Network. (Except without the eveel!!! ;-)

  161. find an appreciative boss :) by FruitCak · · Score: 1

    my boss is all for Open Source so we are free to donate patches and fixes back to OSS projects, as long as we dont reveal company IP to the world, so personally ive contributed some stuff to phpMyAdmin and PEAR, and another guy in the office is working with the NTLM authentication support in libcurl

    --
    I'm me. I think.
  162. Intel has a written policy. by dbc · · Score: 1

    Even for OSS stuff you do on your own time. Basically, you ask your deparment's legal advisor, telling him which project and the scope of your proposed involvement. It is then OK'ed, or not. Approval depends on the project, what you do for Intel, and what you propose to do for the project. Oh... and they read you the rules, but none of the rules are surprising, they are things like: "Don't publish company secrets." and other stuff that should be obvious to the dimmist of wits. Reasonably balanced, and sensible, all things considered.

    1. Re:Intel has a written policy. by radja · · Score: 1

      no, I don't think it's balanced. if I want to make something in my spare time, the company I work for has exactly nothing to say about it, and I'm not going to ask them for permission to do things in MY time, using MY stuff. rules are fine, but requiring permission from your boss in advance to engage in a hobby is utterly ridiculous.

      --

      No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
      --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
    2. Re:Intel has a written policy. by tanguyr · · Score: 1
      What you do outside the regular office context is your own buiness, but during regular office hours, at office premises, working on office equipment - it's not your spare time any more - it's the bought and paid for property of your employer. Now quit wasting time on /. and get back to work ;)

      /t

      --
      #!/usr/bin/english
    3. Re:Intel has a written policy. by dbc · · Score: 1

      You display a profound misunderstanding of California employment law. Sorry. The law is not on your side. Also, when your hobby and your professional employment are in the same discipline, it gets pretty fuzzy. Say you are employed to write device drivers... say you want to contribute to the driver layer of an OSS project... now we better start putting pretty clear boundaries on the respective sand boxes.

  163. Everyone Does not understand GPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So people think they can mod GPL programs and still protect there IP. Now once it is merged with GPL it is GPL you are not forced to share it but your not allowed to copy it either unless you agree to GPL. Basicly if you are working on GPL software with your companys permission everything put in there has just been transfered.

    From a legal point of view you should only really place code section in GPL programs with permission(or own work and be verry careful that is own work and that you are alowned to produce own work. Ie microsoft programmers cannot due to there contract.). This is were the world turns evil. Now lets say you place code in GPL programs the worsted thing could be breach of contract and thieft. The question is if GPL is classed as dammaged if a GPL program contains IP that is should not. GPL was carefully writen so that GPL would not infect other companys IP with out permission now the thing is that the rest of the code is still GPL even with other IP in it so just delete the IP parts that should not be there and it is fixed. The thing is the programmer or the company who stole the IP and commited a crime are the one responable for the damage. Linux developer in the current case would have to live without partical sections. Nothing that could not be fixed. Now we don't place banks in jail just because they are storing drug money. Ie the Bank does not know it is drug money so they are not responable for the crime. This will most likely be the ruling in the case of SCO vs IBM.

    Now it would be a totally diffent matter if SCO or someone told linux developers that this line of code was stolen and they would then have to remove it while it was checked out. Basicly the developers are asking for what will do more damage in the short term if SCO loses but this shows linux teams will to protect IP when a theif is found. Even then I bet there will be a lot of record checking to try to track down who added it so they can be black balled.

    Basicly don't work on gpl code and transfer any company code in as then you are stealing.

    The question is how many times programmers move from company to company and take source code with them. In linux case there open you can see the theif. There are many reasons for opensource Even if the source is unable to be complied and using it being a jail offence. IP is better protected by Opensource than closed as it is simpler to show when the code was developed.

    Now I am not saying all code sould be GPL microsoft sharedsource provides the same protection.

    The question is how many companys would be guilty of source theift if all the source code was opened up.

  164. GPL does not belong to the company by FreekyGeek · · Score: 1

    If you have been modifying code that is licensed under the GPL, then it does NOT, as you say, "technically still belong to the company." That's the way the GPL works.

    1. Re:GPL does not belong to the company by Quila · · Score: 1

      If I understand the GPL right, it's effectively theirs until they release it. The management decision would have to be whether to give the work that their programmers produced out into the world for free, giving back to the system that gave them the base code in the first place, or keep it to themselves.

  165. Re:Your own time -- Internal use exception by jck2000 · · Score: 1

    msobkow wrote: banks and financial companies aren't even going to consider putting their internal processing systems out as GPL software, and don't qualify for internal-use-only exceptions in most cases.

    Why wouldn't internally developed (even contractor-developed) bank or financial company internal processing systems qualify for the internal-use-only ("no distribution") exception?

  166. Re:Simply put: I DO - hmm... Nope. by Valluvan · · Score: 1

    This line of thought has a flaw. Suppose, I have found an incredible algorithm "on my own time" that would save my company a few millions. Should I use it in the company. If the company says, on "company time" no other thing to be done, then I would refrain from using what I found on "my own time" within the company.
    Knowledge worker should not be bound by "his time" and "company time". He should be bound by "Deliverables". Current Employee-Employer contracts are anachronisms in the new reality.

    --

    Science as a way of life.
  167. Re:My thoughts? by confused+one · · Score: 1
    Your right...

    And if I hadn't been so tired and in a sarcastic mood anyway, I might have thought about it more.

    On one hand, I see the Microsoft business as a good thing. They drive the industry. They give us a goal (how can I make my app better than ...) And, despite what many here on /. would say, they do provide a reasonable, feature rich OS, which is improving (features, stability, user friendliness) with each release. Their Office apps are the industry standard that everyone is trying to copy. Their development environments are among the best. The list goes on...

    On the other, I (personally) have problems with some of the thought process they appear to follow. For example: "We have this competitor. Let's destroy them by duplicating their product(s) and bundling it with our operating system" This is perfectly legitimate, I admit. I'm just not comfortable with this line of reasoning. Maybe I read too much into it. Another complaint is that they (in my opinion) charge too much; but, I don't really have a grasp of what there overhead is. It could be that their pricing structure is reasonable for them as a company. I also wish that there would be fewer holes, bugs and other "features" in their code; but, really, other software isn't much better.

    Before I get flamed: I work with both Windows and various flavors of unix; and, I happen to prefer unix; but, Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, any of them, have there own list of "issues" to contend with. There is no perfect OS.

  168. Re:Your own time -- Internal use exception by sgtrock · · Score: 1

    Because that internal development typically gets deployed to a customer or business partner as part of a financial product offering. The software itself is not for sale, but it is required in order to make the financial product work.

  169. Re:Simply put: I don't. by jimsum · · Score: 1

    I was lucky, made it to my mid-30's and the second sale of the company I worked for before I became a Dilbert. I found out, first hand, what many others have learned; that Dilbert is a documentary :-)

    This world really does make you cynical though. In my career I have had to work around about 4 bugs in Windows. In each case it took many weeks (or months) to find the error, then many weeks to devise a work-around. The first time, I actually tried to report the bug to someone; I'll never do that again :-) Using an open source O/S, I probably would have found those bugs twice as fast, and would have been able to actually fix the bug faster than coming up with a work-around. I am amazed that management would not prefer a fix in half the time, or that they should begrudge giving away the bug fix, given the salary it saved them and the benefit they could derive from other programmer's bug fixes.

    As a programmer, being unable to see or change the source code of the O/S is an obstacle to my doing my job. If only management could be convinced of this.

    --
    -- Pot is safer than Beer
  170. Re:Simply put: I DO by frost22 · · Score: 1
    ... and I see a way to make a little change to make it better, or fix a bug. Why should any employer/client worry about that?
    Because it isn't your job.
    You, sir, are a stupid asocial asshole.

    Companies - like people - are supposed to behave in a positive fashion, be good neighbours and good citizens. So when you are a driver for your company, you are nontheless expected e.g. to help out when you see an accident on the wayside, or, more genereal, you are expected to contribute to the general well-being of the communities they live in.

    The idea that ethics, decency, politeness and friendlyness just somehow magically don't apply when you are at work is one of the great sick misconceptions of our time.

    So, if you can fix the bug with a reasonable effort, do and submit it. That's the expected behaviour - and good manners - in your trade.
    --
    ...and here I stand, with all my lore, poor fool, no wiser than before.
  171. Re:Simply put: I DO by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

    " You, sir, are a stupid asocial asshole. "

    This is funny because everything I write, I give away!

    http://libtomcrypt.org

    My point was that work work is work work and is not upto you [no matter how left-wing GNU-righteous you are] whether it gets shared or not back in public.

    Yes, in a perfect world we would share everything. Of course in a perfect world there wouldn't be money anyways! People would right software for the primary purpose of getting work done [not making an almighty buck].

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  172. Re:Simply put: I don't. by WNight · · Score: 1

    As you say, I've never had anyone turn down this sort of offer.

    All companies tend to mean, when they ask if they own it, is if it can ever be taken away from them if they don't pay.

    While they haven't quite broken away from MS, they are starting to learn that they want to buy software, like a book, instead of licensing it and having insane restrictions. Open Source, being restriction-free to users, fits the bill perfectly. It also reduces what they pay to get it created or customized, so it's another win.

    I've *never* had a client not like the idea of open source software.

    (Well, with the exception of one client who wanted to write a program to sell, and wanted to have exclusive rights to it, but this is different circumstances and they told me what the job was at the interview.)

  173. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Tony-A · · Score: 1

    All companies tend to mean, when they ask if they own it, is if it can ever be taken away from them if they don't pay.
    Bingo.
    Not only do they own it (in the sense that no one can take it away from them), but they further own it in the sense that no one can deprive them of the means to have it maintained, enhanced or customized.

    There are two meanings to "own".
    It's mine and you can't have it.
    It's mine and you can't take it away from me.

    Similarly there are two meanings to "security".
    It's mine and you can't break into it.
    It's mine and you can't destroy it.

    Companies have been destroyed when critical information was lost due to hardware or software failures. I haven't heard of any being more than mildly inconvenienced or embarrased by outsiders cracking their systems. Proprietary file system formats can leave a company with no viable exit strategies.

  174. Re:Simply put: I DO by Tony-A · · Score: 1

    Why should any employer/client worry about that?

    IMNSHO, I've got the following choices:
    1) You make do with the package the way it is.
    2) You fix the local copy so (for the moment) mine works better.
    3) You go to the extra trouble, time, and effort to upload the bug patch.

    Choice #3 has the same kind of payout as buying platinum dishpans from Russian serfs.

  175. Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Release a virus into your company computer system. Everyone will be too busy with it to notice your coding OSS.

    RMS r00lz

  176. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Tony-A · · Score: 1

    Try explaining to a client how you just charged them to add some functionality to something that will be used by others for free.

    Good point, but methinks IBM has figured out some of the answer. The $1b IBM dumps into Linux affects IBM only indirectly, yet IBM claims to have more than made the money back. There is no IBM Linux.

    Best bet may be to ask them how long they expect to stay in business. Short-term gains that kill the company are not a good idea (except for fly-by-night companies;)

  177. Re:Simply put: I don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Depending on what license the orginal code is under, you may already be obliged to make the source available to comsumers of the product. Make sure you understand your rights and obligations no matter which license is chosen by the F/OSS you use.

    In any case, if you are working for a consultancy, who wishes to give back, ensure the customers know that you retain the rights to re-use or redistribute the code. If you are a lone gunman, be sure that your contracts specify that you may do the same.

    As for the actual mechanics of giving back, you should find protocols asnd procdures at the project's home page.